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THE

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE OF ARCHITECTURE

AND THE ALLIED ARTS AND CRAFTS

VotumeE XXIII

JANUARY—JUNE

1908

PUBLISHED BY

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD CO.

I-15 East 24TH St., NEw York

841 Monapnock BuiLpviIneG, CHICAGO

CONTENTS

THE ARCHITECIURAL RECORD

VOLUME XXII

JANUARY—JUNE, 1908.

PAGE
AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CORRESPONDENCE, CHICAGO, ILL., THE BUILDING OF THE......... 55
ARCHITECTURE, AN AMERICAN. William Herbert..... Geer ee ORO Cie EN eee Caen III
BRooKLYN PLAZA AND THE PROJECTED BROOKLYN CENTRAL LiBrary, THE. H. W. Frohne. 97
BuiLpING CONSTRUCTION, SHODDINESS OF AMERICAN. F, W. Fitzpatrick....,.......+.- B
CaALiForNIA, THE NEw UNIVERSITY OF. Herbert Croly............. -cceeeeseee cence 269
CEILINGS IN THE GALLERIA DEGLI UrFrizI, Florence, Tue. Alfredo Melani........... 39
CINCINNATI, THE BurLpiInG or. Montgomery Schuyler............. a oletevevensts oe tine etetere 337
Competitive BrppinG on BuiLpinG Contracts, THE Evit ErFects or. Geo.C.Nimmons. 47
Country Home, DECORATING AND FURNISHING THE.....0...: see eeeee cree er cr ceecees 445
CounmrRY: FIOUSE, © DHE MODEST 1.655 ce wireless ties acpi eray orto! minis wiles eie efecto vit siele wie. uaieltelee uaes
EcoLe Drs Beaux-Arts AND Its INFLUENCE ON OuR ARCHITECTURAL EDUCATION...... 241

A. D. F. Hamlin.

Ecotz Des Beaux-Arts, THE: War ITs ARCHITECTURAL TEACHING MEANS......... 367

Paul Cret.

Greek ARCHITECTS. CONTRACTORS AND BurLpinGc Opgrations. A. L. Frothingham.... 81
KircHen AND Its DEPENDENT SeRvicEs, THE. Katharine C. Budd........,.......... 463
TAKIN BUILDING IN DUEEALO,- Pie. —ussell -Sturgise ssc. te ees oe eee 311
Mariano, Lorenzo Di, AN ARCHITECTURAL ScuLpror. Alfred H. Gumaer.......... + 2397
McKinLey MonuMENT, THE CASE OF THE: THE AMERICAN ARCHITECT AND THE AMER-

IGAN PEL UBII@ ri piven 6 wisrererone chumsirte 2 Fi note a: sis -eee se av onsiocs ei eho esele) @iUeyetedelcremerl cist Sidugoubboode I
MemoriAL ArcH, THE: A National EmBiem oF Liserty. A. L. Frothingham....... 5
MontcomErRY, Warp & Company's NEw WAREHOUSE, CHICAGO..... SHdkbo DD COnOGORDUE 228
New York City Hatt, Tue. Montgomery Schuyler................ Rheraoietarcmecaee oan 387
INOMES VAN? OC OMMENT Sie ccs sie circ cre totus shea rete evintaete tele aletoin G cart ale shee uel on otsrs)) Sunk sc atten ugupete 59

Decorating and Furnishing the Home —A Painter of Interior Decoration ; Charles
Frederick Naegele--The Grant Monument Site, Washington, D. C.—The Arab in
Architecture—Skyscraping Up to Date—Mechanical Problems of the Six Hundred-
Foot Building—New York’s Park Opportunity—Proper Design for Suburbs—
Charles River Progress in Boston—Exhibits of Local City Work—Mural Paintings
and Bad Boys—Gleaned From Park Reports—International Housing Congress—
Encyclopedia of Architecture, Carpentry and Building—A New System of Archi-
tectural Composition.

Norns AND Comments. Ulustrated ssc scsi cee arcs noe etie si ee ea eiefeouei ei sce wale ecsiefe ca 136

St. Louis School Buildings—Los Angeles and The Billboards—Parks for Dubuque—
Church in a Theatre—Hotel Decoration—The Architectural League of America

Establishes Individual Membership.

NOTES AND ComMENTS. Illustrated.

The Parker Building Fire—Municipal Action Necessary—Lake Shore Drive Apart-
ment House, Chicago—Modern Landscape Gardening—Spring Garden Branch,
Carnegie Library, Philadelphia—Borie Building—The Los Angeles Plan—New
Haven’s Awakening — Residence of Mr, Henry C. Butcher—A Cathedral for
Halifax—Town Planning Suggestions—Municipal Art Society Meeting—-Foreign
Thoughts on Town Planning.

mestic Glass—The Foundations of Tall Buildings—Mistaken ‘‘Improvement ’—
Baltimore’s Advance—Improving Small Stations—University Scholarships—A Com-
petition for Low-Cost Dwelling Houses.

NOTES AND CommMENnTs. Illustrated
An Architectural Comparison—Lessons from Crosby Hall—Another Boston Vision—
Mayor McClellan on City Beauty—Playground Progress—R. A. Cram on City
Building — Plans for Columbus, Ohio— State Fair Plans—Discussion of City
Planning—New York Art Commission—A Departure in Church Decoration—Mod-
ern Baths and Bath Houses—Academy Architecture.

503

Building Exposition.
PARIS, TOPOGRAPHICAL TRANSFORMATION OF, UNDER NAPoLEon IIf. V. Edw. R. Smith.
PHILADELPHIA AND A CoMING CHANCE, ARCHITECTURE IN. Huger Elliott
PuBLIc SERVICE CORPORATION OF MILWAUKEE, THE BUILDING OF THE

REINFORCED CONCRETE, PRACTICAL ‘AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF DESIGN IN: ARCHITEC-
TURAL ExprEssION IN A NEw MarTeriAL. H. Toler Booraem

St. Louris, Some Business BuILpINGS IN
STRICKLAND, WILLIAM, A PIONEER AMERICAN ARCHITECT. Leslie Gilliams.......

STUYVESANT THEATRE IN New York, THE INTERIOR OF THE NEW: AN INTIMATE AUDI-
TORIUM. Herbert Croly.....

SUBURBAN ARCHITECTURE, OUR

SUBURBAN Home, TREATING THE GROUNDS ABOUT THE. Harold A. Caparn

SUBURBAN Houszs ILLUSTRATED BY PLANS, EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR VIEWS, RECENT....
WAREHOUSES, SOME REcENT. Russell Sturgis

WriGuT, THE Work oF Frank Lioyp. Frank Lloyd Wright

Copyright 1907, by ‘‘ THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD Company.” All rights reserved.
Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter, Post Office at New York, N. Y., Act of Congress of March 3d, 1879.

VoL. XXIII. No. 1. JANUARY, 1908. WHOLE No. 112

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AGCHCR Cy LC

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THE AMERICAN ARCHITECT AND THE AMERICAN PUBLIC : THE
CASE OF THE McKINLEY MONUMENT. Illustrated,........
A NATIONAL EMBLEM OF LIBERTY: THE MEMORIAL ARCH
Illustrated. A. L. Frothingham.
BARON HAUSSMANN AND THE TOPOGRAPHICAL TRANSFORMA-
TION OF PARIS UNDER NAPOLEON II!.—V.
Illustrated. Edward R. Smith.

THE CEILINGS IN THE GALLERIA DEGLI UFFIZI, FLORENCE
Illustrated. Alfredo Melani.

THE EVIL EFFECTS OF COMPETITIVE BIDDING ON BUILDING
CONTRACTS. George C. Nimmons,,..................

SHODDINESS OF AMERICAN BUILDING CONSTRUCTION
F. W. Fitzpatrick.

THE BUILDING OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CORRESPOND-
ENCE, CHICAGO, ILL. Illustrated,

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were cece e eer eccecesccs

PUBLISHED BY

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD CO.
President, CLINTON W. Swrert ‘Treasurer, F'’. W. Dopar

teadese W. Drsmonp Secretary, F. T. MER
) . pad ae 11-15 EAST 247H STREET, MANHATTAN

} “tee Riad Telephone, 4430 Madison Square
. aie 8 Subscription (Yearly) $3.00 Published. Monthly

OFFICE OF PUB'.ICATION: No. |{ EAST 24th STREET, NEW YORK CITY
WESTERN \OFFICE 841 MONADNOCK BLDC. CHICAGO ILL.

Vol. XXIII

JANUARY, 1908.

Architectural RArrord Fe said
_ssronmes me net |

No. 1.

eae

The American Architect and the American
Public

The Case of the McKinley Monument

The American architect surely has
the right to charge American public
opinion with the commission of a pal-
pable and striking injustice. All mod-
ern American artists suffer somewhat
from lack of appreciation ; but the archi-
tect suffers from more than a want of
appreciation; he suffers from a gross
wrong. His name is in the minds of
the people rarely identified with his
work. His professional brethren and a
few thousand acquaintances and clients
are in a position to attribute the most
important modern American buildings
to their responsible designers. The vast
mass of business and professional men
are in no such position. They no more
associate a building with its architect
than they associate a particular suit of
clothes on the back of a friend with a
particular tailor. The fact that a cer-
tain architect designed your building
may be of some interest to you, just as
it is of interest to you that your haber-
dasher and plumber are competent and
honest, but it is not supposed to inter-
est anyone else, unless such a person
happens to need a new haberdasher. In-
deed the architect is in a worse position
in this respect than are many trades-
men, because the latter are permitted to
advertise their connection with a good
article or piece of work, whereas the
former, as a professional man, is denied

this privilege. No matter how much
people gaze at his buildings they rarely
think of them as the work of a man or
a firm, and the poor designer is not
even permitted to scratch his name on
some corner-stone, so that he who
searches may find.

As already intimated, this particular
grievance of the architect must be care-
fully distinguished from the lack of ap-
preciation which is visited upon artists
in general. The painter, the sculptor
and the man of letters may not obtain
the reputation or the recognition to
which they are entitled, but the appre-
ciation they receive is within its limits
genuine and emphatic. Any painting
which is distinguished at all, is distin-
guished even by the vulgar, as the work
of a particular man; and its perpetrator
is allowed to scrawl his name on the
canvas. A sculptor also can declare on
some part of his bronze or marble that
he did it, and the popular recognition
that a certain statue has been committed
by a certain man is much more general
than it is in the case of the architect.
As to the playwright, the size of the let-
ters upon which his name appears on
the bill-boards may compare to the size
of the letters in which the names of the
managers and the star are printed very
muchas the Parkhurst Church will com-
pare to the tower of the Metropolitan

Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter, Post Office at New York, N. Y.. Act ot Congress of March 3d, 1879.
4

2 THE

Building; but small as is the lettering,
it may still be read. The architect alone
neither signs his work nor has his name
written upon it by the persistent curiosity
of public opinion.

Of course there can be no doubt that
the general popular interest in archi-
tecture has largely increased during the
past fifteen years; and there can be no
doubt, also, that the architects, individu-
ally, have received a share of this aug-
mentation of popular interest. But they
have not received anything like a full
share; and, perhaps, the best indication
of this fact can be found in the way
they are treated by the popular periodi-
cals. The rise and spread of illustrated
journalism has created an enormous de-
mand, particularly on the part of Sun-
day supplements and the like, for pic-
tures of all kinds; and among these pic-
tures many photographs appear of con-
temporary residences, hotels, sky-scrap-
ers and other buildings likely to pro-
voke popular interest. In the accounts

of these buildings the names of the
architects rarely appear.

Sometimes at
the end of the article the announcement
will be made that the building cost $5,-
000,000, that its builder was the Celestial
Contracting Co., that its decorator was
Henry Blumenpohl, and its architects
Messrs. Fish & Fish; but the architect
does not bulk any more conspicuously
in the account of the building than does
the plumber. In the great majority of
cases his name is not mentioned at all;
and this practice is followed not merely
by daily newspapers, but by periodicals,
such as Collier’s, who ought to have a
better understanding of the injustice of
such an omission. That journal recently
contained a page full of illustrations of
the large hotels recently constructed in
New York City; but in none of the leg-
ends accompanying them did the name
of the architect appear.

The attitude of the popular periodi-
cals towards architecture is of the ut-
most importance, because they, and they
alone, are in a position to accustom pub-
lic opinion to associate the name of a
conspicuous building with the name of
its designer. They, and they alone, are
in a position to convert the architect

ARCHITECTURAL KECORD,

from the position of a tail-ender into
the position of a head-liner; and they
can do so by the simple but efficacious
means of putting his name in the head-
lines. They are under no compulsion to
publish the pictures of buildings unless
their readers are interested therein; but
if they publish such pictures they should
do so in a manner which is fair to the
men who are responsible for their illus-
trations. They should do the architect
the same justice that they do the painter,
the playwright or the musician. A pic-
ture exhibition or a musical perform-
ance is reviewed even for the daily jour-
nals by men who do nothing else—by
professional critics, who are supposed to
know their subject and to follow care-
fully the work of all contemporary per-
formers. The task of criticism may be
well or ill done, but at least it is pre-
sumed to be a serious occupation, which
deserves the services of an expert. But
when a new residence or hotel is pub-
lished, any ignorant reporter is supposed
to have the information and the judg-
ment sufficient to describe the building;
and such a thing as criticism is, of
course, not even considered. Instead of
helping to popularize the architect and
to bring about the association of his
name with his work, the popular periodi-
cals lend the influence of their hypnotic
control over the popular consciousness
to the perpetuation of the unjust and be-
nighted popular attitude towards archi-
tectural work.

One of the most flagrant instances of
such injustice done to an architect was
the treatment received by Mr. H. V. B.
Magonigle, when the McKinley Memor-
ial was dedicated. This dedication took
place in the fall, and the ceremonies were
attended by a large and representative
body of spectators. The President of
the United States delivered the address.
Accounts of the ceremony, together
with illustrations of the memorial, were
published in all the important daily
journals throughout the country. The
whole affair was an impressive public
tribute, evoked by the affection which
the late Mr. McKinley aroused and by
the distressing futility of his death at
the hands of a crazy assassin. The me-

AMERICAN

morial itself had been paid for largely
by means of a widespread popular sub-
scription, and on the day of the dedi-
cation the eyes of the whole country
were fastened upon the ceremonies
which were taking place at Canton,
Ohio. It would seem as if the man who
had designed this memorial should have
received his share of popular attention ;
but so far as one could judge from the
newspaper reports, his name was scarce-
ly mentioned. The address of the Pres-
ident of the United States did not con-
tain a reference to him and not more
than a passing reference to his work.
The newspapers published pictures of
the monument, but for the most part
they left the identity of its designer to
the imagination of their readers. The
writer examined all the published ac-
counts of it which he could find, and
the name of Magonigle appeared in so
few instances that their influence was
practically negligible. A man who was
impressed by the beauty of the monu-
ment, and who wished to learn the iden-
tity of its author, would have had a dif-
ficult time in unearthing the informa-
tion. Collier’s gave a certain prominence
to the name of the sculptor of.the figure
of Mr. McKinley, Mr. Niehaus, whose
share in the effect of the total memor-
ial, was as one to one hundred; but it
was silent as to the name of the really
responsible artist. It looked almost as
if there was a conspiracy on the part
of the press to deny to the architect the
recognition to which his work had en-
titled him.

Of course, there was no such conspir-
acy. It was ignorance rather than
malice which prompted this gross piece
of injustice. The official speakers and
the representatives of the press, like
other good Americans, simply were not
in the habit of associating the name of
the architect with the enduring architec-
tural monument; and as that name was
one which is better known to the lovers
of good architecture than it is to the
general public, it did not strike them as
important. But explain it as you will,

ARCHITECT AND AMERICAN PUBLIC. 3

the gross injustice remains. The monu-
ment designed by Mr. Magonigle is a
noble and impressive piece of public
architecture. It will not merely perpetu-
ate the memory of the late Mr. McKin-
ley, and testify to the affection which he
aroused among his contemporaries, but
it will by its simple and sober beauty,
actually enhance for future Americans
the lesson of his life and his death. The
architect has in his memorial added
something fine and enduring to the in-
fluence of the dead statesman, and the
dedicatory ceremonies should have cele-
brated, not merely the memory of a man
who had died in the service of his coun-
try, but also the creation of a work of
living beauty. The McKinley monu-
ment is not merely a tomb. It is in its
way a temple, which will arouse in the
bosoms of future Americans an aspira-
tion as well as a memory ; and it is one of
the very few public memorials of which
such a statement can be made. If Presi-
dent Roosevelt in his address had en-
larged upon this thought instead of
pounding with his sledge-hammer upon
the old anvil of corporate abuses, he
would have been teaching the public a
lesson which it needs even more than
it needs the lesson of reform in respect
to the public supervision of incorporated
wealth. No doubt the American people
really want heroic deeds and noble per-
sonalities properly perpetuated, but if so,
they must be prepared to rear memor-
ials which are worthy of the occasion
or of the man commemorated; and
about the poorest preparation they
can make for such a consummation is
the flagrant neglect of the men who are
competent to build such memorials.
While an artist does not need prizes, he
does need recognition, sympathy and ap-
preciation, and it is to be hoped that
future Americans will testify to the en-
during beauty of the McKinley Me-
morial by a contemptuous glance at the
contemporaries who failed to recognize
its adequacy to express the principles for
which it stands and rewarded its de-
signer with neglect.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

THE McKINLEY MONUMENT—PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT DELIVERING HIS ADDRESS
AT THE DEDICATION.
Canton, Ohio. H. Van Buren Magonigle, Architect.
Charles H. Niehaus, Sculptor.
(From stereozraph copyright 1907 by Underwood and Underwood, New York.)

A National Emblem of Liberty

The Memorial Arch

In a modern city, especially an Ameri-
can city, would it be possible for us to
point to any one building as the special
emblem of its historic life, its activities,
its liberties; as the monumental sign-
board of its chartered rights? In the case
of New York would it be the City Hall
or Tammany Hall, Columbia University
or the Stock Exchange?

In? our democracy, with its go-as-you-
please development, its casual meeting of
the problems of the day as they arise,
and its carelessness of posterity, anything
of this sort has been more accidental than
deliberately planned. If we can point to
the Boston State House, and to Inde-
pendence Hall in Philadelphia, it is not
because they were intended to be me-
morial monuments when they were built,
but only on account of the great facts
connected with their subsequent history.
Modern thought, especially with us,
seems to have had slim use for symbols
as such, however enthusiastic it mav
grow over patriotic associations.

But does it harmonize with the sig-
nificance of our history and our passion-
ate patriotism that our grandchildren
should be obliged to consult musty his-
tories, files of grimy newspapers, or other
equally perishable, undignified and un-
official records, if they want to learn
about the Charter of Greater New York
or the circumstances of the foundation
and organization of our other great
cities? Even worse things might hap-
pen. Suppose, for a moment, they
should happen upon a file of the New
York Journal in their search after truth!
But that would be another story!

Lest we forget. With our inroads of
foreign millions it is not enough to teach
school children patriotic songs and to
give “fake” examinations in the Con-
stitution to illiterate grown-up candi-
dates for citizenship. Let us, then, find
a remedy: some record, permanent, un-
impeachable, and for all to see; one that
shall be prominent as the Statue of Lib-

erty. Let it be a monument of but one
type, that shall be set up in every State in
the Union, and in every large city, in-
scribed with the dates and circumstances
of their foundation and local glory ; deco-
rated and surrounded with statues of
their great men.

The Romans did this very thing, and
to do it invented the Memorial Arch.
We are like them in our grasp on the
practical problems of government, our
love of law, our passion for equality, our
ability to combine a conservative im-
perialism with local liberties. Let us fol-
low them in adopting the Arch of Lib-
erty. As with them, let the Arch follow
the Flag. We can certainly spare some
of our surplus to secure permanent rec-
ords of our national and civic life.

Before showing how the Romans
carried out this idea, I should say that
this special significance of what is com-
monly called the triumphal arch of the
Romans is a new discovery that I have
made. This is not the place to prove it.
It is but another proof falling finally
into its real place, of the high value set
both upon Roman citizenship and upon
the municipal liberties of each city within
the Roman domains. We are too apt to
fancy they were swallowed up in
Rome’s imperialism.

We must first of all twist ourselves
free from familiar thoughts about the
arch. Our artists and our citizens have
associated it with the memories of dead
heroes and presidents, with Washington
and McKinley, with living leaders, like
Dewey, with the countless unnamed vic-
tims of our great struggles, as in the
Brooklyn Arch. This association with
wars and great memories is based on
such famous models as the arches in
Rome itself to Titus, Septimius Severus
and Constantine, spectacular examples

of a very small sub-class of apparently
triumphal arches; a mere drop in the
bucket compared with the mass oi ex-
“amples that have no fundamental con-

NY ARCH OF HADRIAN.

ANTINOEH, COLO

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ANTINOE (EGYPT)—PLAN OF SQUARE AND CITY ARCH.

A NATIONAL EMBLEM OF LIBERTY. 7

nection with wars or persons. It is easy
to see how these particular arches should,
from their beauty and situation, have
haunted the imaginations of artists and
people throughout Europe, and now in
America. But a few examples will show
what the arches always really meant to
the Roman citizen: that they marked the
right to be free, rather than the tramp
of the legions.

When more than a century ago, the
Emperor Napoleon sent out his famous
Commission of learned men to study the
antiquities of Egypt, its members in their
progress up the Nile. came upon a sight
that puzzled them completely. It was
the ruins of a large city, thoroughly late
Greek in style, evidently built in Roman
times; so classic in a certain late type
that it seemed as if transported bodily
from the coast of Asia Minor or of Sy-
ria to be set down on the banks of the
Nile, an oasis in the clear and continu-
ous monotony of Egyptian art, during
its long life of some five thousand years ;
an almost unbelievable contrast!

The mystery was solved when it was
found that this city was Antinoé, built
by the Emperor Hadrian, in about one
hundred and thirty A. D., to be the cen-
tre of Greek and Roman culture in Up-

per Egypt, as Alexandria was on the

seaboard. The legend of its foundation
is poetic. It was named after Hadrian's
favorite, Antonioiis, that Bithynian youth
whose dreamy and placid beauty, some-
what melancholy in its un-alert perfec-
tion, was reproduced by all the great
artists of his day, and is even familiar
to us in numerous statues, busts, reliefs
and gems. Around this picturesque fig-
ure there clustered one of the latest of
classic legends. To Hadrian, the ardent
apostle of the revival of Greek culture,
the rebuilder of Athens, the traveller in
all lands, and the enquirer into all things,
there was but one real ideal, and the per-
fect youth, Antinotis, seemed the ma-
terial incarnation of its rhythmic beauty.

When, with Antinotis in his train, the
Emperor passed through Egypt, only re-
cently a hot-bed of sedition, it was not
merely a disaffected population that he
saw. On every side he was oppressed
by monuments that were the very anti-

thesis of Hellenism, creations of an art
that must have seemed to him not only
uninspired and material, but often gro-
tesquely hideous. The countless images
of animal and bird-headed gods, the same
whether carved under the Pharaohs con-
temporary with Abraham or under Cleo-
patra, seemed in their eternal duration
to mock the evanescent beauty of the
Hellenic spirit and its present despairing
effort of galvanized life. Was it fact or
fancy that, in the very midst of this
nightmare, as the imperial procession ad-
vanced through Upper Egypt along the
sluggish Nile, Antinotiis in an excess of
passionate melancholy threw himself into
the stream? This, at least, is one interpre-
tation of the legend. But Hadrian’s spirit
turned the suicide into an emblem of
hope and resurrection, by founding this
memorial city upon the spot and naming
it after his favorite, whom he enrolled
among the gods of Egypt. The French
archeeologists discovered it, hidden in the
undergrowth.

Hadrian called Greek artists to build
it, and peopled it with Neo-Hellenes, as
they called themselves, Greeks from At-
tica. Highways were constructed to con-
nect the new city with the rest of Egypt,
and everything done to give it material
prosperity. These aliens in Egypt miss-
ed none of the accessories to their na-
tive life and customs. The city was built
in broad avenues bordered by hundreds
of high columns. There was a hippo-
drome for athletic games, a theatre for
the plays of Greek poets, public baths and
gymnasia to train the youth, a temple to
the local hero-god, Antinoiis, whose
statues crowned memorial columns and
decorated the great square on the banks
of the Nile.

It was here that a broad colonnaded
avenue ended in an arch, which was
built with greater care than any other
part of the city. To fully appreciate the
architect’s plan one must pass through it
and walk as far as the river bank. Then,
facing about, one must have had in Had-
rian’s time, something like the scheme of
the square of St. Peter’s in Rome, with
its gigantic colonnades reaching out in
their curved lines, like huge tentacles, -
on either side of the facade of the church.

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THAMUGADI (TIMGAD), COLONY ARCH OF TRAJAN.

A NATIONAL EMBLEM OF LIBERTY. 9

But at Antinoé the two wings are in
straight lines, four columns abreast, and
flank a gigantic triple arch preceded by
a memorial column on either side. These
wings reached as far as the river. We
can fancy that in this beautiful square
and under these broad shaded colonnades
the Greek citizens often gathered. It was
probably their political forum; in the
shadow of the arch that proclaimed their
origin and civic rights, and did honor
to the hero from whom they had their

grain fleet did not come in on time from
the African ports to stock the great gov-
ernment warehouses. It was one of the
most masterly achievements of the Em-
pire that it created here, out of chaos
and sterility, broad regions of advanced
culture; and this was made possible by
those colossal Roman works for stor-
ing and transmitting water which we
ought now to study if we want to under-
stand how to apply such engineering
feats to our own national problem in the

GERASA (DJHRASH)—THE COLONY ARCH (SYRIA).

name, as, in their native land, at Patrai,
the gate of the Market-place was crown-
ed with a statue of the city demi-god
and founder.

Here then, at Antinoé, the architect
who laid out the city planned the arch as
its dominant note and symbol.

Without leaving Africa, but passing
westward, we enter quite different sur-
roundings, as militant as those of An-
tinoé were peaceful. The now sterile
and sandy regions of North Africa, par-
titioned among the modern States of Tu-
nis, Algeria, Tripoli and Morocco, were
under the Roman Empire even more
uniquely the granary of the world than
our Western states are atthe present time.
Rome and all Italy starved when the

arid regions of the far West which our
Government is planning to reclaim.

For nearly two centuries the Roman
occupation of Africa, beginning at the
coast, was pushed steadily southward:
cities were being continually founded,
military camps set, and ever advancing
new lines of frontier watch-towers es-
tablished to hold the new territory, re-
claimed both from the desert and the
nomads. One of the new colonies was
Thamugadi, whose ruins are now called
Timgad, in the foot-hills of the great
range of the Aures mountains of South-
ern Numidia, beyond which the dreaded
Moorish raiding tribes were still in un-
checked possession. Around Timgad
were grouped other cities, Mascula, Ver-

Ke) THE vARCHITECTURAL “KECORD.

ecunda, Theveste, all built at about the
same time under the Antonine Emper-
ors: here, too, was the great permanent
camp at Lambaesis, which contained the
army that defended this region that was
made one of unbounded fertility and de-
light.

Timgad, at 3,000 feet above sea level,
where six highways converged, guarded
the main pass across the range and
served also as starting-point for expedi-
tions against the Moors. The uncover-

ing of its ruins by the French govern-
ment is now being completed and has

by the hands of the Third Legion called
‘Augusta.’ It was dedicated by the im-
perial legate Munatius Gallus.” This was
the official statement as to the time and
circumstances of the foundation, borne
aloft by a monument as conspicuous in
its environment as the Cathedral or
Town-Hall in a medizval city. Placed
originally on the city’s boundary line,
across the main approach, the expansion
of the population soon left it, on a gentle
rise, guarding the approaches to the
Forum. It will always be connected with
Trajan’s great work in extending and

PATARA (LYCIA) CITY ARCH.

made of it the Pompeii of Africa. The
city, except that it is in ruins, is now
practically as it was in the second cen-
tury, with its forum, basilica, theatre,
temples, market-halls, gates. Evidently
it was a considerable centre of culture.
The most conspicuous and sumptuous
of its monuments, perhaps the most strik-
ing of African arches, is the so-called
“Arch of Trajan,” in reality the memor-
ial arch of the new colony. Stripped of
its formulas, the inscription in the attic
of this arch said: “The Emperor Trajan,
in his fourth year, founded this colony of
Thamugadi, called (after his sister)
‘Marciana, and (after him) ‘Traiana;

guarding the southern borderland of
Rome in Africa, evoking a picture of
tremendously fertile and well-directed
energy.

If the arch of Antinoé was emblematic
of Hadrian’s character and reign, the em-
bodiment of peace without effort and of
the dreams of a Philhellene; the arch
at Thamugadi built, like the entire city,
by the legionary soldiers, is typical of his
uncle Trajan’s greater and more mascu-
line energy, conquering by war to rebuild
by the constructive methods of a peace
ensured by armed legions. These legions
during the long years of peace were so
taken up with the building of cities,

A NATIONAL. EMBEEM OF “DIBERTY. sa

roads, bridges, aqueducts and other great
public works, as to make of the Roman
armies not the lazy drones that drain the
vitals of modern European nations, but
the best instances of creative energies di-
rected in large bodies for the public
good—large labor-unions on a purely un-
selfish basis.

Leaving Africa for a moment, we will
pass eastward to the province of Syria,
bulwark of the empire against the Per-
sians and Parthians, and inheriting a

ATTALEIA (ADALIA), ARCH
semi-Hellenic civilization and art that
made her one of Rome’s principal teach-
ers. At her capital, Antioch, the emper-
ors often established their headquarters.
Yet even here Rome showed that she had
a mission. On the easternmost border-
land, reaching out toward the Syro-
Arabian desert, was a region that had al-
ways been, even more than it is now,
under Turkish misrule, a prey to nomad
tribes, which made any settled civiliza-
tion impossible, where it had not come
under the sway of a high-spirited North-
Arabian dynasty centered in the rocky
fastness of Petra.

It was also owing to Trajan’s policy
that the Roman grasp upon this territory
became firm and final, that it was girdled
to the East and South with a long. line
of forts to keep the nomads out. Cities
and villages then sprang up like mush-
rooms. Their ruins are still keeping
archeologists busy, for ever since the
Arabs swept over the country in the sev-
enth century, it has been largely given
back again to the dwellers in tents, and
the land is strewn with dead cities.

OF HADRIAN (ASIA MINOR).

Among these, the one whose ruins are
the most important, by the side of the
more spectacular sites of Palmyra and
Baalbek, is Djerash, the ancient Gerasa,
which grew up under the early Antonine
emperors. The city was fairly complete
in its ruins until the old materials were
recently put to use by a horde of Kurd-
ish emigrants sent there by the Turkish
government. A race has been going on
between them and a group of strenuous
German archeologists, who are excavat-
ing, measuring and illustrating the build-
ings before they are destroyed. Inter-
esting as the ruins in Africa are, certainly

12 tHE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD;

these Syrian cities show a higher artistic
type, the inheritance of centuries.

To the traveller approaching Gerasa
from the north, along the main ancient
highway from Philippopolis, the view of
the ruins is heralded by an enormous
gateway spanning the road by the side
of the circus and naumachia, some four
hundred yards outside the city gate. Here
the people came to see the races, the sea-
fights and other sports. It is a triple

AOSTA (PIEDMONT),

archway of enormous size, 82 feet wide,
but so battered that its height can only

be guessed at. It stands, I believe, on
the sacred line dividing the city from the
country, the line called pomerium.
Though its dedicatory inscription has
disappeared with the destruction of its
attic, the position and isolated majesty
of the arch shows that it probably re-
cords the city’s foundation and its pos-
session of Roman city rights.

Passing northward and following the

plan of picking a single example from
each main province or group of provinces
in the Roman Empire, we reach Asia
Minor. Its cities stand quite alone in
their pride and glory, with a long his-
tory of self-government and local tradi-
tions. Here had been the home of the
Ionians in the beginning of Greece: and
here Greek art and culture had persisted
and flourished in the latter days, long
after Athens and Sparta had been trailed

COLONY ARCH OF AUGUSTUS.

in the dust. Ephesus, Miletus, Rhodes,
Pergamon and many other cities, that
were names to conjure with in earlier
days, still remained leaders, with a swarm
of others, in commerce, arts and letters,
gaining a new lease of life under the
peace-giving shadow of Rome. In con-
trast to the cities. of Afmea and sonia,
they never felt the most distant menace
of war for centuries, except when rival
candidates for the imperial throne, like
Septimius Severus and Niger, made of

A -NAITONAL EMBLEM: OF LIBERTY 13

SUSA (PIEDMONT), ALLIANCE-ARCH OF AUGUSTUS.

14 THE: ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

the country for a brief moment one of
their battle-grounds. Many of them
had enjoyed the privilege of making at
first separate treaties of alliance with
Rome, when the legions invaded the
East, and had been called “friends of
the Roman people.” With Rome’s won-
derful adaptability she left these Greek
cities all the liberty compatible with the
unity of the empire, confident in their
loyalty. The prosperity that ensued was
phenomenal. All the old cities seem to
have been rebuilt on a large scale and the
ruins now excavated in Asia Minor have
disclosed far more of the Roman than of
the Greek period. There may be some
wrangling among scholars as to the exact
measure of this municipal freedom and
as to the respective shares of Rome and
Hellas in the shaping of the institutions
of this later Golden Age, but its reality
stares us obtrusively in the face.

The city arch that we meet with in the
ruins of several of these wonderful sites
sometimes bears an inscription that dis-
tinctly reflects this flavor of compara-
tive independence, and connects them

not with a special emperor to whom they
owe their privileges—as was the case at
Thamugadi—but with their local politi-
cal organism and their own province. At
Patara, for instance, the wording on the

arch has this proud simplicity: “The
People of: Patara, metropolis of the Ly-
cian people.”

This official proclamation of a city as
capital or metropolis of a province by
means of the arch-inscription, is also
shown by an arch at Nicaea, where the
inscription sheds an interesting historic
side-light. For centuries Nicaea and Ni-
comedia were the two most important
cities of Bithynia, once a kingdom, now
a Roman province, and there was bitter
rivalry between the two as to which
should have the title of its metropolis.
For a long period Nicaea remained
strongly intrenched in imperial favor,
and when her main arch was built under
Antoninus Pius, its inscriptions vaunted
her as the metropolis. But at some later
time she took the wrong side in a strug-
gle between imperial rivals—the side
of the under dog—and the title went
to Nicomedia which had, quite naturally,

taken the opposite side and so obtained
the necessary “pull.” The humiliation of
Nicaea was officially recognized by the
obliteration of the word metropolis in
the two cases where it occurred on the
city arch; doubtless done by imperial or-
der. It must have been a bitter and ever-
present reminder to the Nicaeans, this
cut in the marble that means so little to
us. On the other hand, such gate-arches
as those of Hadrian at Isaura and Atta-
leia, give the other side of the political
life of: Asia Minor, that was more im-
perialcand less local in its tendencies;
arches that were proofs of the personal
care and liberality of the emperors.

Passing now westward across the Bos-
phorous, we leave behind us the spot
where Constantinople was soon to bloom
as an expended Byzantium, and to have
a Colony Arch in the form of its “Golden
Gate,’ which was really the triumphal
arch par excellence, given to it alone
among all cities beside Rome. We can
now take a survey of Europe. In Greece,
a few cities flourished moderately under
Rome, and of these none more than Co-
rinth, whose Colony Arch has been re-
cently excavated by our American
School: too little remains of it to give
us any proof of its artistic merit. That
old traveller Pausanias mentions it as
surmounted by the Chariots of Apollo
and Phaethon. It recorded the rebuild-
ing of Corinth by Julius Caesar and
Augustus; that tardy reparation for the
great historic wrong done a century ear-
lier, when the barbarous Mummius had
destroyed the great Greek city “and
carted away its artistic treasures as loot
to Rome. The founders of the empire
wished to show the world that Rome
now repudiated the old policy of brutal-
ity and ignorance, and stood for enlight-
enment and good government. The Arch
of Corinth becomes for this reason a sig-
nificant symbol, and marks an epoch in
Roman history.

Passing further westward, there are
two other arches, also of the time of
Augustus, and built at the very begin-
ning of his empire, on the northernmost
frontier of Italy, where the highest Alps
sweep down toward the plains of Pied-
mont. One of these was at Aosta, the

A NATIONAL “EMBLEM OF “LIBERTY. 15

COLONY ARCH.

(Harly Augustan.)

ORANGE (ROMAN ARAUSIO),

16 THE ARCHITECTURAL’ RECORD.

finest remaining example of the Roman
purely military city, built on the model
of a rectangular camp and surrounded
by ramparts. Usually the Roman city
was innocent of fortifications, until the
barbarian inroads threatened the heart
of the empire in its decadence three cen-
turies later. But at Aosta the case was
different. When Augustus, following in
the wake of his great uncle, Julius, laid
out the lines of his great empire, he
found at first as substantial troubles
near home as on the far frontiers. Com-
munication with the north, especially
with the extensive Danubian provinces
and the Gallo-German frontier, depended
on the security of the Alpine passes lead-
ing out of Italy along the whole present
line from Venice to Turin. As long as
these keys to Italy were in the hands of
semi-independent tribes. of mountaineers,
there was no safety. By diplomacy and
by tedious mountain warfare, the long
stretch of highlands was finally pacified.

Two arches were built in these moun-
tains to celebrate the submission of the
tribes to Rome. One was at Susa, at the
mouth of the “Pas de Suse” to commem-
orate the creation of a prefecture of the
Alps with its capital at Susa, in charge
of the local king, transformed into an
imperial prefect. It is an interesting vari-
ation of the civic arch; and its inscrip-
tion gives the names of all the tribes
whose chiefs took the oath of allegiance
to Rome.

The second arch was the one just men-
tioned at Aosta. The tribes in this region
were not to be conciliated. The Roman
army that forced its way up toward the
main pass, pitched its camp and fought
a battle of extermination on the very
spot where Augustus decided immediate-
ly afterwards to build a military colony
peopled with veterans, and to call it af-
ter himself and the army, Coloma Au-
gusta Praetoria. It always fulfilled its
purpose of keeping the pass open_for
Rome and closed to her enemies. Over
a thousand feet in front of the military
gate of the city, an arch spanned the
main approach, a sober, solid structure,
congruous with early Roman art. It
was both a triumphal and a civic monu-
ment, for it recorded the founding of the

city and the occupation of this territory
by ‘Rome after a’.great :vietory. au
marked the point where the jurisdiction
of the new city began. More than any
other arch we have given, :. expresses
the purely military side of so many of the
Roman colonies, set down in the terri-
tory of the enemy to mark that here
Rome has placed her seal.

The temptation is strong to make an
excursion across these Alpine passes, at
this point or along the Riviera, into that
fascinating region of Southern Gaul, the
earliest of Rome’s important provinces.
For here, the granting of citizenship, es-
pecially the so-called Latin rights, first
assumed important proportions. Here
grew up a little Italy that was to outlive
Italy herself as a home of Roman cul-
ture in the West. The last eloquent
poet of pagan Rome was a Gallic poet
of the early fifth century who, as he
leaves it for his own land in melancholy
prescience of its approaching ruin, looks
upon Province as the refuge from the
barbarians of the North. And in_ its
sunny cities at Arles, Nimes, Orange,
Avignon, Vienne, are many of the finest
and most colossal works of Roman art,
including those masterly arches of. S.
Remy and Orange, the most beautiful as
well as earliest to be richly sculptured
among the Roman arches of the world.

Has not this glimpse of arches in dif-
ferent parts of the empire made it clear
that they had a special function and
were present -everywhere? Exactly -
what this function was, not in the opin-
ion of a modern critic but in the mind
of the Romans themselves, may be in-
ferred, but I must make them speak
more clearly for themselves. Otherwise
I might be charged with imagining a
charming but airy figment, a civic myth.

The evidence, of course, is clearest in
the inscriptions of the arches themselves.
It is sometimes expressed in plainest
prose; sometimes it is poetic. It was a
matter of temperament and environment.
North Africa was the home of official-
dom, of red tape and military directness.
Its inscriptions often bore one with their
titles and their formulas. From one of
its arches I cull, quite naturally, the bald-
est unchallengeable proof of my theory.

A NATIONAL EMBLEM OF LIBERTY. 17

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SAINT REMY,

18 THE ARGHITECTURAL. “RECORD.

In 209 A. D. under Septimius Severus,
a colony was founded at a place called
Vaga, the modern Bedja. From the
Emperor it was called Colonia Septimia
Vaga. An arch was built, stating this
fact, and dedicating the colony to Septi-
mius Severus, to his sons Caracalla and
Geta, and his wife, Julia Domna. The
city was founded, the inscription states,
by the pro-consul Flavius Decimus, who
“having founded the colony built the
arch” (colonia deducta arcum fecit).
This is simple enough, but oh! the pre-
amble of red tape about Septimius Sev-
erus, Pius, Pertinax, Augustus, Arabi-
cus, Adiabenicus, Parthicus, Maximus,
Pontifex Maximus, etc., etc., with all
his assumed imperial genealogy for six
generations! We must wade through it
all before we reach the kernel of fact.

The antithesis to such phraseology is
shown in the poetic simplicity of the so-
called arch of Hadrian at Athens. Had-

rian had ventured to build a new Athens
beside the old, in connection with his
Pan-Hellenic rivival, and at the very line
where the old and the new met he set up

an arch. As the stranger approached it,
the artist supposes the arch to speak to
him, telling him what lies before him. If
he comes from the side of old Athens,
the arch says to him in its inscription:
“Behold the ancient city, the Athens of
Theseus.” If he approaches from the
Opposite side, it says to him: “Behold
the City of Hadrian, not that of These-
us.” The arch is, therefore, imagined
to be the official Cicerone, the mouth-
piece of the genius of the city!

Upon and around these arches were
sculptures appropriate to such civic
memorials. Here also the inscriptions
of an African arch give the irrefutable
proof. They are at Cillium, the mod-
ern Kasrine, and tell how Manlius Felix,
with his customary liberality, made the
arch of the colony of Cillium together
with the insignia of the colony. When,
a century and a half later, it was neces-
sary to restore the arch after some dis-
aster in the time of Constantine, the au-
thor of this reconstruction says that he
repaired the ornaments of liberty and
the old imsignia of the city connected
with the arch.

What were these symbolic works of
sculpture? Often it was the famous
group of the Roman Wolf suckling the
Twins, placed in the centre over the at-
tic. It showed that the city belonged
to Rome. Trajan placed this group on
the triumphal gate which he built at
Antioch. The same idea was associated
with the Roman Sow and her litter.
When Hadrian rebuilt Jerusalem as a
Roman Colony, this group was set on
the city arch. More frequently it was
some figure especially emblematic of the
city itself; its Genius, its Fortune, the
Hero who was its founder, or the god
who was its protector. So when a few
years ago, Mr. Bent excavated the ruined
arch of Thasos, one of the few really
Greek arches, he found fallen at its base
the crowning group of Hercules wres-
tling with the Nemaean lion, emblem of
the city. So at Corinth, Phoebus Apol-
lo and Phaethon rode in Chariots of the
Sun on the Colony arch.

Around the arch it was quite natural
that the most important records of civic
life and history should cluster. It was
surrounded by statues of the great men
and women of the city, when local adula-
tion did not prefer to replace these by
images of the Emperors and their fami-
lies, especially those Emperors who were
founders and benefactors. At Thasos,
these statues and their inscribed pedes-
tals are especially interesting, from the
prominence given to the local priestesses.
With all our feminine ascendency, we are
far less generous to women in the matter
of public monuments and official recogni-
tion than the Romans of the Empire!
Trajan’s arch at Ancona, crowned by
statues of his wife and sister, as well as
his own, is characteristic. We would
not even dream of classing Mrs. Cleve-
land or Mrs. Roosevelt among the im-
mortals!

After encircling the whole Meéditer-
ranean from the Pillars of Hercules, we
have now gone back to the source, to
Rome itself; and to the time when, un-
der Cesar and Augustus, Rome first set
herself to govern the world for the sake
of the governed. It was an idea new
to the world; for other great attempts at
universal empire by Assyria, Persia and

A NATIONAL EMBLEM

OF LIBERTY. 19

ARCH OF THE SERGII (COLONY ARCH) AT POLA IN ISTRIA.
(Harly Augustan.)

Alexander had recognized local rights
and privileges little or not at all. The
Romans of the Republic, too, had been
in the field for the plunder of nations.
How did the arch become the material
emblem of this new altruism, which was
also the most enlightened egoism? Its
political meaning harks back to a relig-
ious origin. The first of all arches in
Rome marked the bounds of the sacred
territory within which Jupiter ruled as
head of the commonwealth. It was sa-

cred to the god Janus, who from it faces
both ways; watches both over the city
and over the Roman armies in the field
that have passed out hoping to return
in triumph through this archway, which
has remained open during their absence.
At its threshold where the city limits and
the rule of Jupiter begin does the gen-
eral, who has been absolute ruler in the
field, lay down, on his return, all author-
ity. Only when, in the midst of bound-
less enthusiasm, he is decreed a triumph,

20 THE “ARCHITECTURAL. RECORD.

does he prepare throughout long days
for that glorious time when, preceded
by the spoils and the civil authorities,
and followed by his laurelled troops, he
is allowed to pass through the gateway,
to be supreme even within the city for
that one day as Jupiter’s viceroy, until
at the close of his triumph he returns
the god’s sacred sceptre and mantle,
which he has been carrying, into the lap
of the god in his temple on the Capitol.
Back into the penumbra of Roman

but not as the emblem.of brute force and
conquest. It was given to those privi-
leged places only that were granted some
or all of the rights of Roman citizenship.
So at first, under Augustus, the colony
arch was seen in but few parts of the
Roman domains. It grew slowly in
numbers with Claudius, expanded briskly
under Trajan and the Antonines, riot-
ously after Caracalla, who made citizen-
ship universa'. Whether the city was a

fortress like Aosta, an unprotected mili-

ATHENS, COLONY ARCH OF HADRIAN.

dreamland this picture carries us. The
god in the Arch gave it a real person-
ality in the days of legendary Rome.
This Arch god, Janus, was a witness to
treaties, a punisher of perjury, the guard-
ian of outgoing and incoming citizens,
the vestibule to all the city gods. Even
though the practical Romans of the days
of Cicero gave a political twist to many
old institutions that were at first strictly
religious, Rome was really so conserva-
tive that it is not surprising to find that
the emblem of this spirit-god of the city
should be carried everywhere as the Ro-
man power spanned the world, to repre-
sent the image of Rome in its new colo-
nies. The arch followed the legions, yes,

tary colony like Timgad, a purely com-
mercial colony like Antinoe, or an old
established Greek city like so many in
Asia Minor, it meant but the one thing,
an organic life, a life of orderly freedom
under the aegis of the Roman Common-
wealth !

Finally, when under the new aegis of
Christianity a new capital was given by
Constantine to the Empire at Coustanti-
nople, that city was given its Colony
Arch, its Field of Mars and the privil-
ege of the Great Triumph in order to
make it Rome’s equal. This Colony Arch
still exists in the famous Golden Gate, to
show how much of ancient Rome Chris-
tianity still retained.

A. L. Frothingham.

Baron Haussmann and the Topographical
Transformation of Paris Under
Napoleon III.

NE
THE PARKS AND

THE PARKS.

Haussmann claims for Napoleon III
the distinction of having created the
public civic park. One does not wish to
concede so much without extensive inves-
tigation; but the assertion of the Grand
Préfet is probably near the truth. Royal
domain was doubtless always more or
less public by tolerance, or through lack
of proper protec-
tion. About Paris
itself there was
abundant waste
land which the
people used freely
although it did not
belong to them;
but there was cer-
tainly no organiza-
tion of this import-
ant branch of civic
construction before
Louis-N apoleon
took up the prob-
lem. The empire
was fundamentally
democratic and the
second emperor
was temperament-
ally disposed to
assume the family
traditions. Ee
wished the common
people well. He
desiredto give them
more light, more
air, more com-
fort. Haussmann was
also; but he was more. He understood
the genius of the Parisian people. He
knew that their craving for beauty, for
effect, for display, for magnificence is
the source of their wealth and power.
Paris is not a commercial city; it is an

humanitarian

BARON HAUSSMANN

ARCHITECTURE.

artistic city. In the creation of public
parks, Haussmann endeavored to meet
all requirements.

THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE.

The great royal hunting parks which
lay near the walls of Paris were con-
venient for his purpose. The chief of
these was the forét de Rouvray (Ro-
boretum) which
originally extended
along the eastern
bank of the Seine
from the bend op-
posite Sevres to
the hamlet of Saint-
Ouen near Saint-
Denis. The people
encroached upon
the domain until,
in the twelfth cen-
tury, it included
little more than its
present area. In
1319 some pilgrims
built at the south-
ern —end- -of —the
thact “a Charen in
imitation of one in
Boulogne-sur-Mer,
and gradually the
forest tookthename
Bois de Boulogne.
The limits of the
Bois were fixed by
an edict of Louis
XIV in 1679.

Within and about the park were sev-
eral smaller enclosures; the abbey of
Longchamps (Longus Campus) founded
by Isabel de France, a sister of Saint-
Louis; the chateau, with its park, of
Madrid, built by Francois I in 1530; the
chateau and park of La Muette at Passy,

IN 1889.

THE: ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

MADRID

THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE BEFORE THE TRANSFORMATION.

NAPOLEON 117.

TRANSFORMATION OF PARIS UNDER

40100

THE BOIS DE BOULOGNE AFTER THE TRANSFORMATION.

24 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

transformed by the Regent in the eigh-
teenth century, and the delicious little
chateau and park of Bagatelle near
Neuilly built in 1779, and afterwards
the property of Sir Richard Wallace.

July 8, 1852, the Bois de Boulogne
was ceded to the city of Paris. At this
moment it was arranged like other hunt-
ing forests; Fontainbleau, Saint-Ger-
main or Marly; with long straight roads
running quite through the domain, hav-
ing at their intersection the conventional
“ronds points.” As, for a civic park, this
arrangement was inconvenient; its entire
reconstruction was necessary.

The design of parks on classic lines,
following the traditions of antiquity
and the practice of the Renaissance and
Baroque periods in Italy, had been car-
ried to its complete development by Le
Notre in the superb series of gardens
which culminates in the vast ensemble of
Versailles. Versailles is the largest and
finest expression of breadth and symme-
try in design; and, as such, accorded
perfectly with the temperament of the
time of Louis XIV. In the period which
followed, to the contemporaries of Wat-
teau, Boucher and the court of Louis
XV, its extreme dignity became burden-
some. They called for less of art and
more of nature; more delicacy, more
surprise, more charm. For a lighter type
they turned to England.

England also had developed the for-
mal garden, but the temperament of her
people had never quite accepted it. The
love of simple nature is too deeply rooted
in their temperament. The reaction
came in the early eighteenth century un-
der the leadership of a clever gardener
named Lancelot Brown (‘Capability
Brown,” 1715-1783), who abandoned the
old symmetry, and showed much skill
in adapting the forms of his work to
natural conditions. Brown founded an
excellent school of designers and estab-
lished the type of the “English Garden”
which found its way into every country
in Europe. Many “jardins anglais”
were created in France; the most im-
portant of course being that of the Petit
Trianon.

In the creation of the Parks of Paris,
the choice was made definitely between

the two types, the large formality of the
truly French park of Versailles was set
aside, and the realistic charm of the Eng-
lish park at the Petit Trianon. was
adopted. This was the only choice pos-
sible at the time; but it seems rather to
be regretted. Time has brought about
a better sense of proportion in such mat-
ters. We feel now that both types are
good in their way, and may be used sep-
arately, side by side, or blended in var-
ious proportions.

The work of transforming the Bois de
Boulogne was begun before the advent
of Haussmann and was at first placed in
charge of a Dutch “Jardinier pay-
sagiste” named Varé assisted by the
architect Hittorff. As they proved in-
adequate, in November, 1854, Hauss-
mann called an old associate, Jean-
Charles-Adolphe Alphand from Bor-
deaux, to take charge of the work.

Alphand was born in 1817 at Grenoble,
and was educated in Paris at the Lycée
Charlemange, the Ecole polytechnique
and the Ecole des Ponts at Chaussées.
In 1843 he was sent to Bordeaux where
he rendered most valuable service in
the reconstruction of the harbor and
quais. He became intimately associated
with Haussmann after the latter’s ap-
pointment as Préfet de la Gironde in
1852. Alphand was placed in charge of
the Promenades and Plantations of Paris
and controlled the externals of the city
until 1892. He had charge of the forti-
fications of Paris in 1870, and was the
genius of the exhibitions of 1867, 1878
and 1889. He was the ablest of all the
capable men whom Haussmann attached
to himself in the Transformation of
Paris.

In 1855 the plain of Longchamp was
added to the area of the Bois, carrying
it to the river; and the reconstruction
of the park was completed in 1858.

The creation of a great park at this
moment did not consist exclusively in
the arrangement of levels, of lines of
roads and masses of forest and water. It
was quite as much concerned with the
character of the plantations themselves.
The flora available in the time of Le
Notre was simple. The old gardens de-
pended much upon gravel and grass,

TRANSFORMATION OF PARIS UNDER NAPOLEOW Ii. 25

fountains and other architectural and
sculptural decorations. Alphand found
a much larger field of selection and in-
creased the range himself greatly. He
exhausted the resources of commerce to
discover and bring to Paris every tree
and plant in the wide world which could
be used for his purpose.

In the Bois de Boulogne Alphand es-
tablished the type which has been loyally
followed in the development of all mod-
ern cities. We have numberless imita-
tions in America; some of which, thanks
to our abundant virgin resources and
the genius of the Olmsted School are
really more interesting than _ their
Parisian model. Central Park is a good
deal battered and bedraggled now; but
twenty-five years ago this beautiful
play-ground had a delicacy and refine-
ment which even the Bois de Boulogne
lacks.

THE BOIS DE VINCENNES.

The Bois de Vincennes bears the same
relation to the Bois de Boulogne as the
Place de la Nation bears to the Place de
V’Etoile. It is the play-ground of the
working people of Paris.

In the Gallo-Roman period civiliza-
tion extended along the water-courses,
and the country between was largely
forest. As cultivation increased the for-
est centers became separated; and, in
one way or another, drifted into the con-
trol of the crown. The largest of these
near Paris was the so-called Lauchonia
Sylva to the eastward, which extended
as far as Melun near Fontainebleau. Af-
ter the death of Childéric II in 673 this
forest was divided into three, which be-
came the Bois de Bondy, the Bois de
Livry and the Bois de Vincennes (Sylva
Vilcenna). Philippe-Auguste built the
Chateau de Vincennes in 1183 to contain
animals presented to him by Henry II
of England. When it became clear that
the residence and business of royalty re-
quired a large establishment in the neigh-
borhood of Paris, Mazarin determined
upon its location at Vincennes, and drew
up an elaborate scheme which was, how-
ever superseded by the Versailles en-
semble. In the reign of Louis-Philippe
Vincennes became more especially a mil-

itary establishment. The Bois de Vin-
cennes was the property of the sovereign
or the state until July 24, 1860, when
Napoléon III ceded the tract to the city
of Paris. He had begun its improve-
ment two years earlier.

The design of the Bois de Vincennes
does not differ essentially from that of
the Bois de: Boulogne. It is a “jardin
anglais” thoroughly. In its use it is
more of a play-ground and less of a
promenade.

THE PARC DE MONCEAUX.

The Parc de Monceaux was created in
1778 by Philippe d’Orléans, the father
of Louis-Philippe. It was designed by
Carmontelle as an English garden, ex-
cept in the neighborhood of the chateau
where the arrangement was formal. In
1860 in course of the improvements
connected with the Boulevard Males-
herbes a part of the old park was trans-
ferred to the city of Paris, and laid out
in its present form as a “jardin anglais.”

The Parc de Monceaux is a jewel in
its kind; but it seems a pity that its de-
signers did not treat it in a more formal
manner, with some suggestion of the
classic French style. Alphand had his
limitations certainly.

BUTTES-CHAUMONT (CALVUS MONS,
BALD MOUNTAIN).

This name was given quite early to
a rough gypsum hill which stood a little
to the northeast of the second line of
boulevards, and which was, in the Mid-
dle Ages also called Montfaucon, and
carried the public gallows. It was a
common dump of the city of Paris for
many centuries. On the addition of the
Zone Suburbaine in 1860 a part of the
region was transformed into a public
park. Ihe’-peculiar character of the
Buttes-Chaumont is due to the fact that
the rock had been quarried in a most
irregular way, leaving lofty projections
and deep depressions. The English type
was here peculiarly appropriate.

MONTSOURIS.
The little park of Montsouris was

built in the extreme southeastern part of
the city to balance the Buttes-Chaumont.

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28 THE ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD:

THE PLACE DE LA CONCORDE.

In the reign of Louis XV Gabriel gave
to the Place de la Concorde a form
which should have been final. With its
quiet equestrian statue, the eight pavil-
lions with the statues of cities, and their
connecting balustrades; and a series of
sunken parterres, binding the ensemble
together, the old Place de Louis XV
was extremely beautiful. Unfortunate-
ly the statue was destroyed in the Revo-
lution and in 1836, the fine open center
was filled up by the obelisk of Luxor and
two monumental fountains designed by
the inevitable Hittorff. The pressure of
traffic forced Haussmann, to his great
regret, to fill up the sunken parterres.
The Place de la Concorde is still fine,
but by no means as fine as Gabriel in-
tended that it should be.

THE CHAMPS ELYSEES.

August 20, 1828, the park of the
Champs Elysées was ceded to the city of
Patis.< In 1765 the region. had * been
roughly laid out by the Surindendant
Marigny. The reconstruction of the
Champs Elysées having been determined
in 1858, Haussmann completed the re-
arrangement in 1859 and presented it to
the Emperor as a “surprise” on his re-
turn from the Italian campaign.

THE LUXEMBOURG ENSEMBLE AND
THE AVENUE DE L’OBSERVATOIRHE.

The Luxembourg palace dates from
the reign of Louis XIII. It is one of those
fortunate coincidences which have done
so much for the plan of Paris, that the
meridian of the city should pass very
nearly in line with the main axis of the
building and over a low hill to the south-
ward, where Claude Perrault placed the
Observatoire in 1667. The opportunity
for a great avenue connecting the exten-
sive grounds of the Luxembourg with
the Observatoire was clearly perceived
by the people of Paris, the administra-
tion and Haussmann, who built the pres-
ent street in 1867. At the same time he
remodelled but did not improve the old
garden which had been laid out by De
Brosse. The construction of the Boule-
vard de Saint-Michel and Rue de Me-
dicis limited the ensemble on the east.

The Avenue de l’Observatoire shows
in a fine way the effect of sculpture in
a street. The great fountain placed
by Carpeaux in the Avenue de l’Obser-
vatoire in 1873 is its point of culmina-
tion.

SQUARES AND PLACES.

Haussmann and Alphand created or
remodelled all the smaller breathing
places of the city, and all on essentially
the same scheme. The winding paths,
the picturesque bunches of trees, shrubs
and flowers, familiar in the Bois de Bou-
logne and the Avenue de Il’Impératrice
reappear in each of them. That seemed
inevitable at the time. If they were re-

constructed now the classic French type
would doubtless reappear.

THE VOIRE.

Haussmann did not invent the modern
street; that was done in the seventeenth
century; but he gave it a final and def-
inite form. We have printed several of
the profile sections in our illustrations.
Each of the fine new streets was de-
signed in this way, and the type varied
in a regular manner from a simple ar-
rangement of roadway and _ sidewalks
like the Rue de Rivoli to the Boulevard
de I’Italie with its seven rows of trees
and complication of roadways and prom-
enades.

Haussmann’s scheme provided for ne-
cessities beforehand. . There are places
for things beneath a Parisian street. The
perpetual obstructions of an American
city are unknown in Paris.

THE ARCHITECTURE OF THE SECOND
EMPIRE.

The architectural history of Paris is
so long and so rich; there are so many
fine periods of culmination that our at-
tention is held by the earlier periods. We
are accustomed to assume that all the
good work is old work. We are sur-
prised to find, on looking over a period
so late as the Second Empire, how fine,
voluminous and important it really is.
A list of the architects employed during
the period presents many notable names,
a list of buildings presents many splen-
did monuments. Haussmann was deeply
interested in all this work and much of

TRANSFORMATION OF PARIS UNDER NAPOLEON III.

NOILVWUYOFSNVUL AO SSHOOUd NI LNOWNVHO

SHLLNA SAC

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30 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

it was done under his immediate direc-
tion.

The most valuable contribution which
he made to the architectural develop-
ment of the city of Paris was in the or-
ganization of the office of the municipal
architects.

It had always been the custom to em-
ploy good men on the public works of
Paris, but when Haussmann appeared
in 1853 he found this important matter
loosely arranged. The Service of En-
gineers was in much better order. Archi-
tects were simply summoned by the pré-
fet for special service, and dismissed af-
ter its completion, receiving an honor-
arium proportioned to the amount of
money spent. He created a corps of
public architects recruited from the best
graduates of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts,
which is such a monumental contrast to
the manner in which this branch of the
public service is arranged in our Ameri-
can cities that we can do no better than
to give his scheme in detail as it is pub-
lished over his name in the Encyclopédie
d’Architecture for July, 1860. With the

list of offices we will give the names of
the men appointed by Haussmann to fill
them:

DIRECTION DU SERVICE.
Architecte-directeur; Baltard.
Inspecteurs et architectes ordinaires;

Peron.
Inspecteur dessinateur: Alfred Leroux.

ARCHITECTES EN CHEF.

le division: Gilbert ainé, membre de 1’Institut.
Casernes, corps de garde et postes de police, prisons,
maisons de répression de Saint-Denis, maisons
d’arrét, fourriére, dépdt de mendicité de Villers-
Clotterets, morgue, préfecture de police, halles et
marchés, entrepdt des vins, grenier de reserve,
douane, abattoirs.

Inspecteur dessinateur: Lacome.

2e division: Louis-Joseph Duc. lLycées et col-
léges, Sorbonne, Eicole de Droit, Ecole de Medicine,
Ecoles et asiles, Palais de Justice, Institut Eugéne
Napoléon.

Inspecteur dessinateur; Train.

8e division: Bailly. Mairies et justices de paix et
postes y attenant, Bourse et Tribunal de Com-
merce, barriéres et batiments d’octroi, bureau de
péage, cimetiéres.

Inspecteurs dessinateurs: Hermand et Villain.

4e division: Ballu. Eglises, temples, presbytéres.

Inspector dessinateur; Alfred Leroux.

CONTROLEURS.

Controleur en Chef: Edouard Renaud.
Controleurs ordinaires; Garlin, Lerat et Rateau.

ORGANIZATION DU SERVICE PAR CIRCON-
SCRIPTION.

le Circonscription: le et 2e arrondissements, dits
du Louvre et de la Bourse; Architecte, Huillard;
Inspecteurs, Varcolier et Moreau.

2e Circonscription: 3e et 4e arrondissements, dits
du Temple et de l’H6tel de Ville; Architecte, Calliat;
Inspecteurs, Lemaitre et Gentilhomme.

Pellieux et

.8e Circonscription; 5e et 6e arrondissements dits,
du Panthéon et du Luxembourg; Architecte, Charles
Garnier; Inspecteurs, Dejean et Gribout.

4e Circonscription: Te et 8e arrondissements, dits
du Palais Bourbon et de l’Elysée; Architecte,
Uchard; Inspecteurs, Salleron et Barbier.

5e Circonscription: 9e et 10e arrondissements, dits
de l’Opéra et de ’Hnclos Saint-Laurent; Architecte,
Gilbert (Jeune): Inspecteurs, Tougard et Devrey.

6e Circonscription: lle et 12e arrondissements, dits
de Popincourt et de Reuilly; Architecte, Gancel; In-
specteurs, Higouet et Flament.

Ze Circonscription: 18e et 14e arrondissements, dits
des Gobelins et de l’Observatoire; Architecte, Vau-
dremer; Inspecteurs, Chat et Dubel.

Se Circonscription: 15e et 16e arrondissements, dits
de Vaugirard et de Passy; Architecte, Godeboeuf;
Inspecteurs, Roger et Bouwens.

9e Circonscription: 17e et 18e arondissements, dits
de Batignolles et de Butte-Montmartre; Architecte,
Lebouteux; Inspecteurs, Raveau et Mesnager.

10e Circonscription; 19e et 20e arrondissements,
dits des Buttes-Chaumont et de Ménilmontant; Arch-
itecte, Janvier; Inspecteur, Aldrophe.

Some of the best men of the day and
some of the largest personalities in the
history of French architecture appear
in this list. Others were employed on
important monuments not included in
the regular “service.” Let us consider
some of these men and the work which
they did under the Second Empire.

Victor Baltard, Architecte-Directeur,
was the son of a distinguished engraver
and architect, Louis-Pierre Baltard, who
held the office of Inspecteur Général of
the public works of Paris from 1837 to
his death in 1846. Baltard fils won the
Grand Prix in 1833. In 1849 he was
placed in charge of the more important
religious and educational buildings of
the city. From 1850 to 1854 he was as-
sociated with Viollet-le-Duc and Lassus
in the preservation of diocesan buildings,
and in 1852 built the Halles Centrales
with the assistance of Callet fils. His
first design, which was heavy and aca-
demic, did not satisfy the Emperor and
Haussmann, who insisted upon following
the type established in the railway sta-
tions. This discussion resulted in the
present effective and convenient struc-
ture. After 1854 he had entire charge
of the Hotel de Ville. He. built the
church of Saint-Augustin (1860-1871),
and published several important works
on architecture. It is to the credit of
Haussmann that he recognized the great
ability of Baltard and supported him
loyally in his high position, although
their temperaments were antagonistic
and their personal relations always
slightly strained.

Perhaps the largest figure among the

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2 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

architects of the Second Empire was
Louis-Joseph Duc, architecte en chef of
the Second Division of the Service
d’Architecture; a pupil of Percier and
second Grand Prix winner in 1825. In
1834 he succeeded Alavoine as architect
of the Colonne de Juillet, and in 1840
was placed in charge of the vast recon-
struction undertaken at the Palais de
Justice, which included the conservation
of the historical portions of the palace,
and the new additions; the fagade on the
Cour du Mai, the Cour de Cassation and
the great facade in the Rue de Harlay,
finished in 1868. As a recognition of his
fine achievement, Duc received the spe-
cial Grand Prix de l’Architecture which
was given by the Emperor in 1869. In
1866 he replaced Gisors at the Institut.

Charles Garnier, Grand Prix, 1843,
figures as architect of the 3e circonscrip-
tion in the Service d’Architecture. He
was obliged to leave this office to take
charge of the construction of the Opéra,
which he won by competition in 1861.
Garnier’s Opéra is the best known and
most characteristic of the monuments of
the Second Empire.

Théodore Ballu, architect en chef of
the 4e Division in the Service d’Archi-
tecture, won the Grand Prix in 1840. In
1893 he succeeded Gau as architect of
the church of Sainte-Clotilde, which he
finished in 1857. He restored the Tour
de Saint-Jacques (1854) and built the
new tower of Saint-Germain 1’Auxerrois
(1858-1863). In association with De-
perthes, Ballu rebuilt the Hotel de Ville
after its destruction by the Commune.

Antoine-Nicolas-Louis Bailly, archi-

tecte en chef of the 3e Division in the

Service d’Architecture, was a pupil of
Duban. Haussmann and the Emperor
were much pleased by his design for the
Tribunal de Commerce, which supplied
a fine point of interest to the vista of
the Boulevard de Sébastopol.

It is not necessary to carry these
notices further. Anyone familiar with
the history of modern Parisian architec-
ture will recognize the importance of
certain personalities if we mention their
names: Davioud, Renaud, Hittorff,
Ginain, Godeboeuf, the two Gilberts,
Calliat.

CONCLUSION.

In our study of the Great Trans-
formation we have held closely to the
plastic side of the work; the dressing of
the plan and the decoration of the city.
For the best of this, for the larger lines
of conception, Haussmann is responsible.
This side of his life interested him great-
ly, but it did not entirely absorb his at-
tention. All the requirements of his
great city called for faithful considera-
tion and received it.

In nearly all matters relating to the
proper organization of civic affairs,
Haussmann was not only a pioneer, but
the most eminent master. Compared
with his accomplishment. that of any
other one person is insignificant. His
system of sewers is as fine in their way
as the streets above them. He for the
first time brought pure water to Paris
from distant sources. He completely re-
modelled the cemeteries, adding vast
tracts to the land available for this ser-
vice. Gas was introduced before the
time of Haussmann, but the adaptation
to the improved city was entirely his
work.

Perhaps the one phase of his task
which touched Haussmann most deeply
was the financial, and it is precisely here
that he is most criticized. He used
freely the city’s credit, thus forcing fu-
ture generations to bear the burden as
well as to enjoy the benefit. He rested
with the utmost confidence upon his prin-
ciple of Dépenses Productives, which
means simply that the money spent made
a better city, and the better city was a
greater producer of wealth; which is
perfectly true. The new Paris has more
than fulfilled Haussmann’s expectations.

When the opposition to the empire
forced Haussmann’s resignation in 1869,
just before the war, his work was prac-
tically complete. What remained to be
done was easily accomplished by lesser
men.

The Transformation of Paris followed
immediately after the construction of the
great French railways. For twenty years
violent disturbance of values was the
rule and not the exception. The specu-
lative opportunities for those in the lead
were incalculable. Many took advan-

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tage of this. Women about the court,
clever Americans and other foreigners
assisted in the making and losing of for-
tunes. Zola’s “la Currée” is a true pic-
ture undoubtedly; but Haussmann’s
heart was the pure heart of a man of
genius, and his hands were clean. He was
ambitious certainly. He endeavored to
‘secure high recognition for his office;
the was courteously merciless in forcing
duller men, from the Emperor down, to
take the pace of his relentless imagina-
tion; but through it all he was the single
minded French bourgeois whose wants
were few and whose favorite mode of
life was quiet and simple.

Haussmann did not take sufficient in-
terest in the accumulation of wealth to
provide sufficiently for his old age. He
left the Hotel de Ville in 1869 depend-
ing upon his wife’s estate in the Gironde

and his pensions as senator and prefect.
His pensions disappeared with the em-
pire, and his estates proved unproduc-
tive;.so that it was necessary for him
“soutenir journellement la lutte pour la
vie; bien rude a quatrevingt ans passés.”
“Je conserve,” he says, “du fruit de tant
d’efforts, que l’honneur d’avoir bien servi
mon pays dans une poste aussi dificile
qu’ élevée.” “Que la mort me frappe de-
bout, ainsi que tant d’hommes de la forte
génération a laquelle j’appartiens, c’est
ma seule ambition désormais. Je sortirai,
dans tous les cas, de ce monde, sinon la
téte haute, comme jadis, de ma vie pub-
lique; du moins le coeur ferme, et quant
aux choses du ciel, plein d’espérance de
la miséricordieuse justice du Tres Haut.”
Edward R. Smith,
Reference Librarian, Avery Architec-
tural Library, Columbia University.

COLUMBUS MEDAL.

C. F. Naegele, Artist.

The Ceilings in the Galleria Degli Uffizi,
Florence

The attention of visitors who are not
artists to the Galleria degli Uffizi, in
Florence, is generally spent on the pic-
tures and the other objects exhibited in
the galleries. Seldom does the average
visitor take any particular notice of the
interior decoration of the various exhibi-

the interior of an art gallery as it is done
there.

Yet these galleries are much admired,
and are justly celebrated, but not for

‘their suitability for exhibition purposes.

In fact, one might say, if any part of the
building is particularly ill-suited for ex-

DECORATIVE CEILING OF

Florence, Italy.

tion rooms. At the Uffizi, the entrance
galleries or corridors (in which there is
such a profusion of light) attract the
artist not only by their contents, but also
because of themselves. One might con-
tend that their conspicuous beauty isa
drawback to the proper exhibition of the
works of art to be seen within, and that
no one to-day would think of decorating

THE UFFIZI GALLERIES.

hibition purposes, it is the corridor which
occupies the perimeter of the well-known
gallery. But it must be mentioned that
this building was not originally intended
for an art gallery, having been designed
by Vasari in 1560 for Cosimo I. de Me-
dici, to serve as administrative, judicial
and archival offices for the government
of the Grand “Duchy or... Tuscany,

40 THE ARCHITECTUKAL RECORD.

Bearing in mind this fact in judging the
Uffizi as exhibition galleries for painting
and sculpture, we must admit that they
form a fairly convenient background for
the purpose.

I have remarked that these galleries
are in themselves remarkable pieces of
interior decoration, consisting of a spe-
cies of ornamental paintings which are
known as “grottesche,’” from the brushes
of prominent Italian painters. The
“grottesche” is a form of decoration
which the Italians are much to blame in

Giulio Romano, and Taddeo Zuccaro?
These illustrious names in the art world
of that period form but a very small part
of the glorious legion who so largely
contributed to embellish Italian buildings
with their works of painting and sculp-
ture. There is besides a large number of
other artists whose work is important
enough to stir in us a certain amount of
interest and curiosity. If we doubt the

existence of this large class of important
artists, the ceilings of these same Uffizi
galleries will convince us of their exist-

DECORATIVE CEILING OF THE UFFIZI GALLERIKS.

Florence, Italy.

slighting, especially these admirable ex-
amples in the Uffizi.

We artists therefore, who form only a
relatively small part of the visitors to
these galleries, shall direct our admira-
tion to these paintings on their ceilings,
remarking at the same time that the
“grottesche” do not compare unfavor-
ably with the best Italian work of that
kind, from Rome to Venice, and from
Genoa to Caprarola, by the great artists
of the “Cinquecento.” Which one of us
does not recall the names of Giovanni da
Udine, Pierin del Vaga, Bernardino
Poecetti. (called “delle Grottesche’ ),

1Grottesche are whimsical figures or scenes such
as are found in the old crypts or grottos of Italy.

ence. In fact, the corridors of the Uffizi
Galleries interest artists almost as much
as the famous “Loggie Vaticane.” An
English artist with whom I recently
visited the Uffizi expressed himself as
being particularly struck with the vivac-
ity of the brushes that created suca an
accumulation of beauty, and fresh, merry
and fanciful motives in the realm of
decorative art. I was asked to account
for the name “grottesche” being given
to those paintings which employ such a
variety of queer decorative forms:
temples, cartoons, flower motives, fig-
ures and so on. The question was avery
reasonable one, and might very properly
have been asked by any artist, especially

CEILINGS IN GALLERIA DEGLI UFFIZI, FLORENCE.

not an Italian. I shall undertake to reply
briefly herein.

Let us first consult Vasari, the well-
known biographer of Italian artists, and
at once writer, architect and painter, who
also planned the “Galleria degli Uffizi,”
in which are found these remarkable
“grottesche.” He says: “The ‘grot-
tesche’ are a kind of licentious and ridic-
ulous paintings, much used by artists in
the ornamentation of recesses, and are
composed of infinite drolleries and incon-
gruities; he who succeeded in being the

elegans
nn

“Morto da Feltre,” Vasari says, “re-
produced the ‘grottesche’ more like the
ancient way of painting them than did any
other artist of his time,’ and Feltrini,
with Giovanni da Udine, did much to
give them their easy and flowing form.
Vasari makes special mention of the dif-
ferent forms in the decorative painting
of the “grottesche,” of which he says in
the Life of Giovanni da Udine: “The
ornamentations of slender stucco forms
are alternated with variously colored
spaces, representing beautiful and mys-

DECORATIVE CEILING OF THE UFFIZI GALLERIES.

Florence, Italy.

queerest in imagining them was con-
sidered the cleverest.”” Thus does Vas-
ari explain and severely judge them. He
mentions them in the life of Morto da
Feltre’ (1474—1522+), and of Andrea
di Cosimo Feltrini.

2As to the existence of Morto da Feltre, or Pietro
Luzza, called Zaroto, there is some uncertainty.
There is mentioned in some document a painter,
Lorenzo Luzzo da Feltre, called Zaroto or Zarotto,
who may be Morto da Feltre. Concerning this
Morto (‘‘morto’’ means in Italian, ‘‘dead’’—he was
so called on account of the paleness of his face),
a love story is narrated. In spite of his nickname
and his paleness, Morto da Feltre seems to have
won the love of the sweetheart of one Giorgione or
Zorzi da Castelfranco, who died of a broken heart
as a result. Other documents say that Giorgione
died in Venice in 1510, after an attack of the
plague. This account does not, however preclude
the possibility of Morto da Feltre’s existence.

terious tales,’ thus contradicting what
he says above. In his “Vite,’”’ he ob-
serves indifferently that Raphael and
Giovanni da Udine were enthusiasts of
the “grottesche.”

We may therefore be permitted to
conclude, according to Vasari, that the
“grottesche” were seen by some painters
of the 16th century, and by certain dis-
ciples of Raphael, in the interiors of
Roman grottos. From these grottos
they were repainted, imitated, in vari-
ous patts of the: Btertial City, and;
being imitated from models that orig-
inated in the grottos, they were called
“grottesche.”

42 THE VUARCHITECTURAL. RECORD.

Let me explain this question of the
grottos more accurately. The grottos
of which Vasari speaks are the “Terme
di Tito” (Baths of Titus), namely, the
underground and _ accessible portion
which corresponds to about the center
of the southern side of what formed the
pre-existing “Domus Aurea” of Nero.
It might be inferred that the pupils of
Raphael had the entrances to the grottos
walled up, to prevent its being known
that they copied from ancient models in
painting such a work as the “Loggie di

apartments of the Borgias at the Viti-
can. Schmarsow thus lessens the reju-
tation of Morto da Feltre, or whoever
he was, but does not solve the mystry
in which is wrapped the Hellenitic
painting which gave rise to the “guot-
tesche” of the Cinquecento. Here 4s
a mystery indeed! There must hive
existed in Rome numerous examples of
such paintings at the time when Brurel-
lesco and Donatello explored the city in
quest of art treasures; and the copyng
them was one of the triumphs of chs-

DECORATIVE CEILING OF THE UFFIZI GALLERIES.

Florence, Italy.

Raffaello.” But this it is ridiculous to
assume, as the “grottesche” belong to
the tree of Hellenistic painting; they
are a plagiarism, sometimes an ampli-
fication and variation of the Hellenistic
theme.®*

Schmarsow ridicules Vasari’s_ ver-
sion of the “grottesche’” by demonstrat-
ing that Bernardino Pintoriccio (1454-
1513), a disciple of Raphael, was the
first to use it in his work in 1492 in the

8O0ne should be particular to distinguish between
Hellenic or Greek and Hellenistic. The Greek
style is that of Phidas, of Ictinus and of Callicra-
tus, while the Hellenistic period is the style of the
Alexandrian epoch, and is also sometimes called
**Alessandrino.”’

sical architecture.
said about the origin of the “guot-
tesche,”. which, after being at fxee
copied literally, kept pace with the cobrs
and stuccos of the time. Accordingly,
we find some Italian painters who were
also plasterers, such as’ Giovanni da
Udine (1487-1564) in Rome, and, ac-
cording to Vasari, Pierin del Viga
(1499-1547), aided by Silvio Cosmi
(about 1495-1540), who worked as a
plasterer at Genoa or at Fassolo a
town which deserves more _ attenton
from artists visiting Italy. Giovanni da
Udine worked also as a plasterer at the

The same may be

CEILINGS IN GALLERIA DEGLI UFFIZI, FLORENCE.

Laurenziana Library in Florence, but,
unfortunately, this work is no longer in
existence, nor are the stuccos by the
same master in the palace of Giovan-
battista dall’Aquila in Rome, at the end
of the Borgo Nuovo, near the Piazza S.
Pietro;

The “grottesche” are also sometimes
called “raffaellesche,” or paintings after
the school of Raphael Sanzio. This pre-
sumption that Raphael created a similar
style of decoration to the “grottesche” is

VSLIPENE SROKA

Giulio Romano, Giovanni da Udine and
Pierin del. Vaga, This ‘contusion. of
authorship it was which caused the name
“raffaellesche.”’ It ~ assumed |.;that
Raphael had created the style of deco-
ration of which we are speaking, and
which Vasari, as we said above, judged
with severity, as well as illogically, as
other Italian artists before him had done.
Vitruvius, the celebrated essayist and
contemporary of Augustus, found no
propriety in applying to an architecture

DECORATIVE CEILING OF THE UFFIZI GALLERIES.

Florence, Italy.

not so, and should be corrected. If
Raphael really painted in this style he
did so like many other painters of
his time, drawing his inspiration from
the ancient Latin source. It has been
supposed that Raphael was the author ot
the famous Loggie del Vaticano, a piece
of unrivalled decoration, in which the
gospel of the “grottesche” is, so to speak,
disclosed. But it has now been estab-
lished beyond a doubt that Raphael
never touched brush to this masterpiece,
which was entirely the work of his
pupils, foremost among whom _ stand

of stone the small temples which form
the base of the decoration that the 16th
century called a “grottesche,” and which
Rome the ancient knew in the epoch of
the Empire. This want of correspond-
ence between the architecture and the
decoration irritated Vitruvius, who like-
wise had little use for the profuse and
licentious figures which never had ex-
istence in Nature as they were de-
picted in the “grottesche.” The decora-
tion had a wide application, notwith-
standing the harsh criticism of Vitru-
vius, and the strictures of Vasari and

Vitruvius, eminent men though they
were, do not merit the approbation of
modern students.

Every art has its own peculiar mode
of expression, and the “grottesche”
employs small temples with supports
as slender as the stem of a flower,
little satyrs and sphinxes that do not
offend the zsthetic sense, because they
are motives of expression in another
form and in another material, in distinc-
tion to the forms of stone architecture.

THE “ARCHITECTURAL: RECORD.

herewith give but a very faint idea of ‘he
polychromatic effect of the figurative
and ornamental images depicted. ‘These
images are attributed to the well-known
painter Bernardino Barbatelli, caled
Pocetti, who was the principal maser
of the “grottesche” in Florence. Plaas-
ible as this theory may sound, these
decorations are, in fact, the composte
work of various painters of different

epochs, e. g., Mario Butteri (who did
his best work around 1567), Alessancro

DECORATIVE CEILING OF

Florence, Italy.

Moreover,. the figures that are repre-
sented are not supposed to be copied
from nature. Decorative art must be
based on freeness of imagination; it
must put together such combinations of
light and shade and color as will be
pleasing to the eye, and, accomplishing
this result, decorative art mav be calied
successful.

Going back now to the ceilings of the
Uffizi, we can surely say that the
masters who painted them achieved a de-
cided success; it must, however, be ex-
plained that the photographs reproduced

THE UFFIZI GALLERIES.

Pieroni (who was prominent about
1588), Lodovico Buti (who reached ‘he
height of his career in 1590), Frin-
cesco Bizzelli (1556-1612), and prob-
ably Alessandro Allori, called Bronzio.
All these men are known to have worked
on the figure portions of the medallims
and cartoons. The oldest portion of the
ceilings dates from 1581, which dite
can be read in the first corridor.

There are three corridors all told, tvo
very long ones running parallel md
joined by a shorter one. The long coim-
dors are of more recent date, belongng

CEILINGS IN GALLERIA DEGLI UFFIZI, FLORENCE. 45

to the period of Ferdinand II. (1578-
1637), and were finished about 1658 by
Luigi Ulivelli and others. About a cen-
tury later (1762) a fire broke out in the
Uffizi, destroying a considerable part of
its painted ceilings, together with some
busts, portraits, ancient statues, and a
sketch by Michelangelo. This unlucky
event necessitated restoration and _ re-
building, which included the repainting
of some of the ceilings. The subjects,
be it remarked, are not entirely drawn
from the imagination, for we find among

DECORATIVE CEILING OF

Florence, Italy.

them many historical and allegorical
scenes and figures that awake inter-
esting memories of Florentine events.
We meet figures and events in the lives
of the de Medici family, who ruled
Florence at that time. The careful
examination and study of the “grot-
tesche” in the Uffizi is most instructive to
the artist who must rejoice at the fecund-
ity with which those brushes were used
and their marvelous agility. He may
gain from them an almost inexhaustible
supply of. ideas and historical knowl-
edge. =Vhere is+ noticeable here: - and
tthere a certain lack of unity in the
ornamental subjects which is most ap-

parent in the black and white com-
positions, in which the lack of color
emphasizes the lack of unity. One
might criticize, and justly, the frivolity
of some of the decorative subjects; the
fancy is sometimes carried to an extreme
of exaggeration, where moderation
would have been more appropriate.
Should the reader be of this mind, he
should, however, remember that the
energetic coloring and the meditated
harmony of the color masses emphasize
the exuberance of the lines. Decorative

THE UFFIZI GALLERIES.

painting relies in a special manner upon
the color composition, which impresses
through its large masses and often serves
to correct faulty drawing. The outlines
of the masses are then merely expedients
tending to give a more solid base to the
composition as a whole.

The ceiling decorations of the Uffizi
cannot be pointed out as models of
sobriety, for the epoch during which they
were executed was one of riotous fancy
and license. After the middle of the
16th century Italian art tends to the
Barocco, and the ceilings before us are
also interesting, because they show how
the “grottesche” were painted in Flor-

46 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

ence when the Barocco style was begin-
ning to make itself felt. It proceeded
imperturbably on the road of the most
fiery fancy ever experienced in Italian
art, and numbered among its most robust
exponents such artists as Lorenzo Ber-
nini (1598-1680) and the graceful Roc-
cocco. Therefore, the brushes that

painted the ceilings of the Uffizi, at the
same time express their respect for the
Barocco and the Roccocco styles, so
much sneered at and unjustly blamed in
Italy and abroad when it came forth
with its impetuosity of passion and its
inexhaustible vein of fancy.
Alfredo Melani.

OF CEILING DECORATION IN THE UFFIZI GALLERIES.

Florence, Italy.

The Evil Effects of Competitive Bidding on
Building Contracts’

I do not know of anything more im-
portant in connection with the erection
of a building than the contract. Our
interests all center in this document and
by its terms we assume obligations
which bind us all together for the ac-
complishment of a common _ purpose.
There is perhaps no one who has a bet-
ter opportunity than an architect to ob-
serve how well a contract accomplishes
the purpose for which it was made. I,
therefore, propose to discuss briefly the
modern building contract and the effect
which competitive bidding has upon it.
We have seen in our time the greatest
advancement in building construction, in
some respects that the world has ever
known. With the advent of the new
building material, structural steel, and
its accessories, the invention of the ele-
vator, and the various things that have
made this great progress possible, the
problem of erecting a building has be-
come one of great magnitude and re-
sponsibility. Yet, with all this advance-
ment in construction, little or no im-
provement in the contract has come, or
of the method of letting the contract,
notwithstanding the fact that a contract
nowadays may involve immense sums of
money and great difficulties and prob-
lems of construction. Some contracts
not only involve the execution of work
in a manner never done before, and with
which no experience has been had, and
again some not only require great feats
of construction in an almost inconceiv-
ably short space of time, but they may
also be accompanied by unusual danger
and even loss of life. With all of this
to contend with, we make use of an old
system of letting our contracts, which,
in my opinion, may be questioned and
discussed with profit.

Of the three kinds of building con-
tracts, the percentage contract, the fixed-
profit contract and the competitive bid

*Paper read at the Annual Meeting of the UEsti-

mators’ Club at Chicago, by Mr. George C. Nim-
mons, of the firm Nimmons & Fellows, architects.

contract, I will discuss the competitive
bid contract, because it is the one gen-
erally used. Nearly all of the discussion
which follows applies as well to sep-
arate contracts as to a general contract,
but for the sake of brevity, the applica-
tion is made only to a general contract.
In considering, then, this important
subject, I desire to direct your attention
to several leading questions concerning
our system of letting contracts.

Does our present system of letting
contracts by competitive bids result in
securing for the owner the lowest ob-
tainable cost for a building, consistent
with good workmanship? On the sur-
face of this proposition, it would appear
that an owner always did get his build-
ing at the lowest possible cost, or some-
times below that by competitive bids. I
suppose that most of you can cite at least
one instance where you have suffered
loss on a building through unfortunate
circumstances over which you had no
control, or through some other cause.
Each time, however, that a contractor
loses money on a job, makes him more
conservative on the next building and
makes him realize how full of risk and
hazard a contractor’s bid is. Conse-
quently, the amounts allowed in an es-
timate for contingencies are much larger
than they would be if there were not
so much risk of financial loss. It is un-
doubtedly also the case that the various
profits of sub-contractors and material
men vary greatly in proportion and
amount. It sometimes happens that the
contractor will lose money and many of
his sub-contractors make more than the
average profits on the same job, and if
one contractor or general contractor
loses money, it does not follow that the
building was built for less than the real
cost; that is, the actual cost, plus a rea-
sonable profit for all contractors. In
compiling the sub-bids which a con-
tractor is required to get before making
up his own bid, I do not believe that it
ever happens that any one contractor

48 THE ARCHITECTURAL. KECORD:

ever succeeds in getting all of the low-
est sub-bids that may have been offered
on a particular building, nor does he
succeed in getting them even if he gets
the contract. As a result of our pres-
ent system of letting contracts, there is
scarcely a contractor who has not at
some time in his experience been obliged
to exercise the most rigid and severe
economy, to the great displeasure and
disapproval of his. sub-contractors, who
were in no way responsible for his sign-
ing a contract in which both he and they
were subjected to loss. This has natural-
ly brought about a condition in which
most of the sub-contractors and material
men have their particular friends and
favorites, to whom their lowest prices
only are given.

The bidding on a large building in-
volves the securing of prices on different
products and materials from a great
many sources. It may extend from the
manufacturer down through the hands
of many intermediate dealers, to the
origin of the raw material. It may in-
volve hundreds of people. All of these
dealers and sub-contractors are obliged

to expend thousands of dollars yearly in
taking off quantities and making figures
on plans from which they do not get

a dollar in return. The amount of use-
less work done yearly in this country in
that way must be an astonishing item,
if it could be computed. The result of
it all is, that the contractor and dealer
add to their bids the expense of all this
wasted labor and the owner pays for it.
Here is a great waste going on con-
stantly which increases the cost of build-
ing by reason of our system of com-
petitive bids.

The amounts added to bids for con-
tingencies are very considerable. Con-
tractors must of necessity safe-guard
themselves in their bids, not only against
troubles which may not occur with ma-
terials, but also against labor troubles,
which are sometimes very expensive.
The uncertainty at times of prompt de-
livery of materials by railroads, when
time is the essence of the contract, often
makes the purchase of expensive stock
material a necessity. The lack of space
to handle material in the congested part

of a city, is at times a matter entirely
problematical as to cost and here again
a contingency item must be added.

The extensive builders’ equipment,
needed for a modern building, cannot
sometimes be closely calculated as to
cost, on account of new and complicated
forms of construction, which often oc-
cur in the construction of a buildng.
These, and other causes of uncertanty
in the cost of building construction, are
usually allowed for by the contractor in
his bid at a cost greater than what tiey
actually amount to in the construction
of the building.

The taking of competitive bids 5 a
complex and intricate process. The
theory of a sealed proposal is beautful
and the practice of it originally may
have been ideal. But now, a sealed pro-
posal is based on prices and information
that may come from a hundred different
sources and the proposition is entizely
different from what it must have keen
originally. The complications that may
arise, the opportunities that may occur
for loss for some and immodest profits
for others, are very great. The very
nature of our system nowadays invites
and encourages the opposite of that for
which it was intended, and I firmly be-
lieve that the result of competitive did-
ding, as a basis on which to let a con-
tract, does not, as a rule, result in secur-
ing the lowest possible cost for a buld-
ing.

The undue financial risk and haard
connected with signing the avenge
building contract are harmful influerces
which make themselves felt all throigh
the operation of erecting a building. Of
course, it is not denied that there is isk
or chance in every business transacton.
Risk cannot be done away with in buld-
ing contracts, but it is very evident fiom
the results of our method of letting «on-
tracts and from the great difference in
the amounts of the bids, that an urdue
amount of risk is taken with the arer-
age building contract. ‘The contracors
themselves do not agree with any ac-
curacy as to what the cost of a buildng
is. The bids often vary several tines
the amount of the contractor’s prfit.
The minute a contractor signs a contact

BVI EPPBCLTS “Or “COMPETITIVE BIDDING.

for an important building, he assumes.

a responsibility far greater than the
merchant or manufacturer does in his
business. I believe the risk of a con-
tractor, for financial loss is far greater
than was ever intended by that genius
who first said “Competition is the Life
of Trade.’ Competition in building is
not that kind of competition; it is really
speculation, and sometimes on account
of the complication and difficulties of
our modern construction, it is far more
hazardous. than buying margins on the
Board of Trade. It is a gamble, pure
and simple. When you think of it, and
when you consider that the building in-
dustry was the first made use of by man,
to build his shelter and home, and when
you think that the building industry is
the most important one of civilization,
it does seem to be a great wrong that
we, by the use of an antiquated system
of competition, should make of this
noble calling a gamble and speculation.
There is no calling on earth that better
deserves its reward than the building in-
dustry. Under our present system, a
contractor, as a rule, is selected, first of
all, on a basis of the lowest bid. Con-
sideration of a man’s integrity, his abil-
ity or character, have very little to do
with it, if there is any great difference
between the bids. With the architect
present to police the job and see that
nothing is missed, the owner is usually
willing to fight it out along these lines.
It is greatly to be regretted that this
state of affairs exists, but it seems to be
the only natural outcome of our system.
When a contractor secures a contract
under these conditions, his responsibil-
ity is very great, and on this account,
his anxiety naturally has the effect of
shaping his methods of procedure, all
to one purpose. This has an evil in-
fluence on the work and on all those con-
nected with the construction of the
building. The effect of this unhealthful
condition of affairs tends to preclude
any thought of the permanency and ex-
cellence of the work, beyond that re-
quired in the contract. It extends to all
the workmen and discourages thoughts
or ambitions of good craftsmanship on
their part. Who among the tradesmen

have time to consider that a brick skill-
fully bonded at some critical place,
might add years of endurance to a-wall,
or that a nail driven on a slant might
hold a piece of lumber far longer in
place, or that a bit of paint added in
some concealed place might make a
piece of metal last twice as long? Why
is it that the good, old-fashioned ways
of bonding brick, such as our forefathers
learned in England, have given way to
the modern way of throwing brick into
a wall, which often goes with hollow
spaces and weak places in it, in. spite of
the most rigid inspection? Why is it
that the old-time method of mortising
and doweling timber, which went to
make up the strong and rigid frame-
work of our houses, has given way to
the modern system of so-called balloon
framing, where there is hardly a mortise
or tenon to be found? What is it that
is influencing our methods of construc-
tion, and in some respects making them
far inferior to the old-time ways? There
is an influence from some pernicious ©
cause doing this. It is not that our trades-
men are incapable; it is beyond ques-
tion, traceable largely back to one cause,
and that catse is competitive bidding.
Competitive bidding allows no time un-
der the contract for improvement in
craftsmanship. All the skill, and all the
art of the workmen are devoted to one
and only one end and that is speed;
speed at the expense of endurance or
merit, or art in the work.

Another effect of our present system
to be considered is the bearing which
it has on the relation between architect
and’ contractor. Under our uniform
contract the architect acts as the agent
of the owner and is supposed to furnish
the contractor in the plans and specifica-
tions a complete guide from which to
erect the building. The architect has
conceived the building in his mind and
drawn out this conception on paper, so
that others may be able to translate the
mental image into stone, or brick, or
other material. The contractor and his
workmen are supposed to be co-workers
with the architect, working all together
for the good of the building; first, to
fortify it against time, its worst enemy;

50 THE “ARCHITECTURAL RECORD;

to build it economically, so as to make
it best serve the purpose for which it
was created; and to make it beautiful as
a whole and in every part, so that it
may take its proper place in the world
as a welcome addition to the buildings
of its time.

The architect, the contractor and all
his men, -should naturally be drawn
closely together in a sympathetic bond of
common endeavor, just as they used to
be in olden times, when they made those
beautiful carvings and did that ex-
quisite workmanship, which we have
never since equalled.

If the characteristics of our people
have been. truly reflected in the nature
of our architecture, then our buildings
must ‘be distinctly marked with evi-
dences of the strenuous and economic
commercial. spirit of the times. Our
greatest. structures are not those dedi-
cated to religion, art, or science, but to
commerce. The greatest of all is the
office ‘building. Yet, if the signs of the
times are read correctly, things. are al-
ready changing and will change more

in the future. As men acquire wealth
and reach the stage of competency in
their fortunes, they are beginning again
to realize that financial supremacy and
commerce are not the only objects of

human existence. They are awakening
to the fact that there are in the world
other things of great intrinsic value be-
sides money. ‘There is surely coming a
time when you, the builders, and we, the
architects, will have an opportunity to
create an architecture which shall at
least be devoid of the narrow influences
of our times.

In conclusion, I wish to make a few
suggestions as to the cure for the evil
effects of competitive bidding. I realize,
I hope, as much as any one, the great
difficulties in the way of making any
radical change in a custom so. long es-
tablished, as competitive bidding. How-
ever, I believe that this system, which
may have been all right. in its day, has
worn itself out. I believe that it is a
misfit on our present day conditions;
that our modern problems of construc-
tion will in time force it out. of existence.
To illustrate this, I wish to refer to the

comparatively new problem of lettiag a
contract for a reinforced concrete build-
ing. This new kind of structure, may
be successfully built, with a reasorable
degree of safety, provided that it is
properly designed, and carefully and
conscientiously constructed. Yet if any
one of the many important parts of this
building is slighted, or if the contractor,
or even one of his workmen, undertake
to apply any money-saving economies,
or rush-methods of the ordinary baild-
ing, the inevitable penalty is -awful.
The builder or the workman is liabe to
answer for it with his life. Here is a
new feature in the problem, that will
surely receive a hearing at the letting of
the contract. It will soon become evi-
dent to the public, if it is not already
so, that competition only on the basis
of cost cannot with safety be entertained
for a concrete building. Those sterling
qualities of character in a builder on
which so much depends for the excel-
lence of the work, will receive a new
and higher appreciation. A builder’s
ability, his integrity, his loyalty, his
skill, his aptitude for his work, will
again be put at a premium as these cual-
ities used to be in olden times. When I
refer to the concrete building, I have in
mind not only the concrete builling
familiar to us with the ordinary slab, or
floor beam construction, but those von-
derful constructions in Europe where
astonishing things are done with con-
crete, both structural and ornamental.
These great problems will undoubtedly
come to us, and then the contractor will
be called upon to execute the most dif-
ficult work that has ever been attempted.
His ability and his skill will ther be
even in greater demand than they are
now, and the best man will no longe: be
selected by competition on price. How-
ever, this instance of the concrete build-
ing was given in this connection only
to show that.the character of this vork
is such, and the danger of acciden so
great, that an owner and, therefore, the
public will find that competitive bidding
is not a safe way to let the contract for -
a concrete building.

In considering the remedy for the
evil effects of competitive bids on ton-

EVIE: EPPECES OF” COMPEPITIVE “BIDDING. or

tracts, it is evident that a very radical
change must be made if any great good
is to result. To suggest a scheme which
would in itself be radical and at the
same time effective, is a very difficult
problem, and it is likely that if an im-
provement comes, and I surely think it
will, that it will come about gradually.
It is necessary, first of all, to educate
the mind of the public and to bring it
to understand that there are a great
many defects and evil results in build-
ing operations from our present system.
I believe the difficulty would be largely
overcome, if the problem of determining
the real cost of a building, beyond ques-
tion of -a doubt, could be worked out.
The fact that contractors’ bids for the
erection of every building differ so
widely in amounts is a feature which has
made the public regard the estimate for
every building with suspicion. I un-
derstand that in England where the esti-
mator, called a “Quantity Surveyor,”
who is independent of the contractors,
takes off the quantities of materials, that
the bids of contractors, based on these
estimates do not differ nearly as much
in amount as do the American bids. I
am informed that there is very little
difference indeed between the bids of
English contractors, as based on these
estimates furnished by the “Quantity
Surveyor.” I do not believe that there
is a single owner about to erect a build-
ing who would not be willing and glad
to enter into a contract with any good
contractor, and pay him a reasonable
profit on all work done, if the: owner
could be assured, beyond a doubt, of
the real cost of the building. On the
other hand, I do not believe that there
is a single contractor who would not
be glad to undertake any ordinary con-
tract, provided he was assured also of
a reasonable profit. I believe firmly
that these are the facts, and if they are,
the problem would seem one of getting
these two parties together on the proper
basis.
Following out this line of thought, I
have taken the liberty of outlining a
system which I believe would meet the
requirements in a general way. How-
ever, I wish it understood that this is

given merely as a suggestion, with the
hope that some of you, who are better
qualified than I, will some day start the
movement for a reform, which is so
much needed in this part of our work.

The outline of my suggestion for a
system of letting contracts, is as. fol-
lows:

Ist. To establish some way of deter-
mining the absolute cost of a building.

2d. To have the estimate of the quan-
tity of material and labor made by some
one independent of the contractor.

3d. To have you, gentlemen, the esti-
mators, set up offices of your own, as
the English Quantity Surveyors have
done, but estimate not alone the quan-
tity of material as they do, but the
quantity of labor as well; you to receive
your pay as they do, by getting a per-
centage on the cost of buildings, and to
be appointed as the estimator for a
building by the owner or architect.

4th. The contractors to agree upon,
as their profit, a reasonable and proper
percentage, on the cost of buildings,
and to execute a contract as they do now
by hiring all labor and buying all ma-
terial. Each sub-contractor in the
various building trades to take his work
on a regular percentage of the cost of
the building; either separate contracts,
or a general contract to be let for the
building, according to the wishes of the
owner.

5th. A definite fixed sum as the cost
for the building and of each part of the
work as estimated by the independent
estimator to be agreed upon by the
owner and contractor or contractors as
the proper cost for the building, or the
several parts thereof. This sum or sums
to made a part of the contract, or con-
tracts. If, in executing the work, the
amount of labor or material, or both,
exceeds in cost the amount or amounts
named in the contract, this excess of
cost to be borne equally by the owner and
the contractor, or contractors. If the

cost of labor and material is less than
that agreed on in the contract, the
money so saved should be equally di-
vided between the owner
tractor or contractors.
George C. Nimmons.

and con-

Shoddiness of American Building
Construction

We deplore the really cruel, unneces-
sary, immoral waste of property by fire,
and we have much to say about the low
standard of work executed by our me-
chanics generally, the never-ending re-
pairs. we have to make to our buildings
and their all too rapid deterioration ; in-
deed, some of us complain anent some
of the new fashions of construction that
actually permit of buildings collapsing
even while they are in process of erec-
tion. Various reasons are advanced for
these deplorable conditions, but it seems
likely that, thoroughly sifted, we could
reduce and charge them all to the one
sin of shoddiness.-

Shoddy construction, like most other
sins, is serious in itself, but still more so
in its effects and what might, flippantly
but expressively, be termed its “side is-
sues.” One of its most important con-
trolling factors is the desire of some
builders to make undue profits; these
men have encouraged and still encour-
age slovenly, incomplete, shabby work
on the part of their employees—therein
lies the profit—these get into the habit
of doing that kind of work, the contagion
spreads and today, as a nation, while we
are noted for our ability to do many
excellent things, the general character of
our labor measures up to a deplorably
low standard. More than that, the shod-
diness that intially was injected into our
buildings for illegal, immoral reasons,
has left its marks on our laws as well
as upon the “yielding of our labor;” at
some time or another it was winked at
by the authorities or permitted under too
lenient and lax regulations, until it ac-
tually became the gauge by which
ail: > things were: - measured. Digest
the building laws of any of our cities
and see how really apologetic we become
in demanding and insisting upon work
that is so palpably for the absolute bene-
fit of all and is so clearly the only thing
to do, but which is of but little higher
grade than the indifferent. Insurance

companies have awakened to the fact
that big returns followed by tremendous
losses, mere magnitude of business, do
not always spell profit and are beginning
to make commensurately low rates on
well-built, fireproof buildings, while
raising the average rate on deficient con-
struction. At the same time, little by
little we have succeeded in getting our
cities to likewise raise the standard of
exaction to the point where the too de-
spicably inferior is either not permitted
at all ‘or relegated to the outlying dis-
tricts. And the result is that our people,
who have grown so used to “shoddy,”
actually feel that they have a grievance
against both laws and insurance compa-
nies, that their rights are being assailed
in that they are no longer: permitted to
build everywhere and anywhere the same
poorly constructed buildings in which
they formerly indulged.

The average layman sins in this re-
spect through one part cunning, two
parts hope that he will escape the natural
result of flimsy construction and ninety-
seven parts ignorance. The man against
whom these remarks are particularly di-
rected is the “speculative-builder,” the
one who knows well enough how things
should be done but who deliberately and
with malice aforethought slurs and
skimps and skins a building to the ut-
most of his sometimes really splendid
ability, for the purpose of increasing his
profit. He is the gentleman who builds
a house with two by six joists in the
flooring, culled boards three inches apart
for sheathing, paper of inferior quality
and without laps, green pine finish, and
all the other etceteras of a “skinned”
house, and paints the whole thing in most
alluring colors—mixed largely with coal-
oil and guaranteed to last at least two
months—lays some sickly sod on top of
broken brick, plaster dust and the rest
of the building debris doing duty as a
lawn, and then inserts glowing advertise-
ments in the papers cunningly calculated

SHODDINESS OF AMERICAN

to catch the unwary; and alas, before
many days does actually hook his prey
and land him into a very net if not a
slough of despond.

I see much of that gentleman’s work
in every city throughout the country, but
perhaps a little more of it right here in
Washington than anywhere else. Few
people here ever think of building a
home. One person that they are afraid of
is the architect, and perhaps not with-
out reason. “Extras” and delays are
rather effective bugaboos that have been
held up to them. So they prefer to buy
a house, already finished, which they
can see and know all about in the flesh
rather than merely on paper, and they
dicker and deal with the speculator and
lo, he flourishes, groweth fat and rideth
in automobiles. They do not build homes
here, dainty, comfortable little detached
houses, but great rows in tens and fif-
teens and twenties, of dark, ill-con-
structed, tawdrily finished boxes, verit-
able fire-traps, or in mild terms, rottenly
built city houses. The poor beguiled
wretch who gets into one and who has
paid over his hard-earned shekels soon
finds that the chief charm of its plumb-
ing system is that the bath-room is en-
tirely tiled in white and “looks good.”
The real plumbing is as shabbily done
as the none too strict or over-rigidly en-
forced regulations permit; the next win-
ter after occupancy he finds that his fur-
nace is too small and that the pipes are
on the outside walls; and his troubles do
not begin then but continue. His insur-
ance rates are distressingly high, his re-
pair bills enormous and he curses the
day that he first thought of buying a
house.

For my part were I anathematically
inclined I should heap coals of fire upon
the head of every “speculative-builder,”
or at least upon most of them, yea would
I even legislate them out of their ne-
farious trade.

The incomprehensible thing to me is,
why do architects who make some pre-
tence of being somebody permit their
clients, however foolishly inclined the
latter may be, to adopt the methods and
manners of the aforesaid individual in
erecting homes and other buildings for

BUILDING CONSTRUCTION. 53

their own occupancy, not merely for sale.
I have in mind a house that I passed a
day or so ago. A huge four or five-
story affair of stone and terra cotta,
ornate in the extreme, pretentious and
bearing every external appearance of
being a veritable palace, a house that
one should judge would cost anywhere
from $75,000 to $100,000. It is on the
crest of the Sixteenth Street Hill in
Washington, D. C., near the “Hender-
son Castle,” and I am told it is to be oc-
cupied by the French Embassy. Every
external indication would point to its be-
ing tended for a permanent and stately
domicile. It will probably house valuable
diplomatic lives, archives of interna-
tional importance, bric-a-brac, furniture
and other plunder of great cost, and
presents every reason for being well-
built. I was curious enough to step in-
side to see what system of_ construction
was being used. I stopped but a mo-
ment, long enough, however, to note
that there were wooden floor joists,
wooden roof construction, wooden lath-
ing, wood, wood and more of it. The
pretentious exterior was in reality but
the whited surface of a dismal sepul-
chre, a fire-trap of the most deceptive
nature, a monument to the assininity of
the owners and the culpable negligence
of the architect!

People say that the architects are not
to blame, that their authority is not to
be compared to that of a doctor. A
doctor diagnoses the ailment of his
patient and “orders” him to do thus and
so. Most men will obediently follow
directions, believing that life or death
depends upon that obedience. Not so
with the architect. He is not hired to
“order” his client; he is his willing, ob-
sequious and ever-obedient servant.
Granted. Generally he is even so afraid
that the aforesaid client will get away
from him that he will put the cellar on
the roof of the house and the attic in
the basement. But if the architect,

through his own poor management of
affairs, has brought himself to that piti-
ful state of servitude, he should still have
sufficient professional pride and man-
liness, if he can not “order” his client,
at least to labor with him and point out

54 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

the inevitable advantages of building
well rather than shoddily. “Shoddy”
has such a hold upon our people, our
architects, our laws, that to get them all
out of the habit, so to speak, we must
absolutely use force added to persuasion.

At different times I have advocated a
sliding scale of taxation, the maximum
tax upon imperfect, dangerous build-
ings, requiring the maximum of protec-
tion, and the minimum upon those struc-
tures sensibly built and presenting the
less vulnerability to fire and other at-
tacks, and costing the community the
minimum for protection. Likewise have
I besought the insurance people who
have their own constituents’ best inter-
ests at heart, to raise their rates on
flimsy construction to a prohibitive
point. Some good has already been done,
though much yet remains to be accom-
plished. But I am here again today in
an appeal to the architects—those who
think, those who are earnest, and have
some public spirit—to join, to co-operate,
to really work with some vim in an en-
deavor to get the states to unite in
passing adequate and uniform laws
clearly defining the minimum of excel-
lence permitted in any construction, in
city, town or hamlet within the state’s
borders. This is not a substitute plan
for sliding taxation nor is it suggested
because the insurance companies, though
they have raised their rates on poor
building, have not made them high
enough to bar or to prevent new fire-
traps being erected. It is an adjunct to
both of these means of securing the de-
sired end.

Outside of the large cities there is, at
present, little regulation of buildings by
law; anyone may build anything he
wishes. The village of today is perhaps
the city of tomorrow and the citizens of

the larger places will for years have to
suffer for the building sins of their pro-
genitors, the sin of shoddiness. More-
over, even in some fairly large cities
building regulations are in a primitive
state. Regulation of building laws is
the business of the cities, but the state is
an interested party and the city is but
the child of the state.

Some states have already taken up
seriously the matter of better building
laws; fire marshals have been appointed
and given certain duties and authority.
But more is wanted, not alone more
states to make this first step, but those
that have made it to go farther, to en-
act laws, minimum building requite-
ments, to which all cities will eventually
be obliged to conform. Let each city do
as much more toward this end as its own
good sense may dictate, but the stzte
should decree the maximum amount of
shoddiness that it will tolerate, and the
lower that maximum is placed the better
it will be for the state and for the city.

The International Society of Build-
ing Commissioners, of which society I
have the honor of being an officer, has
made a stirring appeal on behalf of such
legislation to the governor, the legs-
lators and the press of every state in tie
Union, and we are hard at work in tie
preparation of a uniform code of build-
ing laws for presentation simultaneoudy
to all the legislatures at their next cm-
vening.

I bespeak this journal’s and the archi-
tects’ co-operation and hearty, effective
work on behalf of a higher standard
of building construction, not only for
our large public or business structures,
but for the smaller and less important
buildings of which our residences, apart-
ment houses and suburban homes form

no small part.
F, W. Fitzpatrick.

The Building of the American School of
Correspondence

The building of the American School
of Correspondence, ° illustrdtions — of
which are published herewith, is a not-
able addition to the group of interesting
business structures which the Archi-
tectural Record has been publishing of
late years, and its interest is due both to
the excellence of its handling and to
the more than usually happy conditions
under which it was erected. As a gen-
eral rule important business structures
occupy restricted sites on crowded thor-
oughfares, and the architect has to sub-
mit to many conditions which make
his work at the best a compromise. But
a school of correspondence, as its name
indicates, bears much the same relation
to an ordinary business concern as a
mail-order house does to a department
store. Its business is transacted largely
by mail, and consequently it can avoid
the necessity of building on very ex-
pensive land in the heart of the city. It
requires practically an office building,
covering a large floor space in a respec-
table but not necessarily a very central
neighborhood, and its large floor space
can be obtained by the use of a spacious
site rather than by the erection of a
many-storied structure. It is necessary,
of course, that its offices should be very
well lighted, as in an ordinary office
building, but the interior requirements
as to the Size of the rooms. are. of a
very varying nature, which permits and
calls for certain unusual variations in
the design. Furthermore, inasmuch as
a school of correspondence is a peda-
gogic as well as a business enterprise,
it iS appropriate that the building
should express its affiliations with in-
stitutions of learning. Propriety does
does not demand a design which is rig-
idly utilitarian in character. On the
contrary, such a building will the better
fulfill its purpose, provided its architec-
ture evokes associations with one of the
several collegiate styles of the past.

The building of the American School
of Correspondence, designed by Messrs.
Pond & Pond, admirably fulfills all these
conditions. The architects have de-

signed an edifice which somehow looks
business-like without ceasing to be col-
legiate, and their success in achieving
this result has been partly due to the
spacious site on which the building stands.
This site faces on three streets, and has
moreover an abundance of light and air
in its rear. Each of the three facades
has features of special interest, but they
are bound together by an uncompro-
mising integrity of treatment. The core
of the design consists of a bold tower-
like projection, containing one addi-
tional story, whereby the entrance on
the main facade is emphasized. All of
the building to the right of this tower,
whether on the main or on the side
street, is subjected to a similar treat-
ment, which is different from that part
of the building to the left of the tower,
chiefly because of the treatment of the
fourth story. To the left the fourth
story recedes and is lighted by dormers,
whereas to the right it is carried through
and terminates in a parapet. This ar-
rangement is obviously dictated by the
different uses to which the different
parts of the floor are put; but it is as
successful from the architectural as it
is presumably from the practical stand-
point. The building obtains a balance
which could hardly be achieved by some
formally symmetrical arrangement, and
if the effect does not wholly satisfy the
eye, it makes a strong appeal to a candid
architectural intelligence. In another
matter, also, have the designers been,
very successful. They have been
obliged to supply an abundance of win-
dows, which have very little solid wall
space on their three facades, and the ef-
fect of which was hard to reconcile with
the solid strength of the tower. This
discrepancy has, however, been measur-
ably removed by the buttresses, which
have been run up on the several faces
of the building as high as the second
story. These buttresses add enormous-
ly to the consistency of the design, while
at the same time they intensify the col-
legiate suggestion, which was already
fixed by the central tower.

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THE BUILDING OF AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CORRESPONDENCE. 57

THE NEW BUILDING OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CORRESPONDENCE—FRONT.

THE NEW BUILDING OF THE AMERICAN SCHOOL OF CORRESPONDENCE—SIDE VIEW.
Chicago, Il. Pond & Pond, Architects.

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NOTES & COM MENTS

The success of the

suburban house, espe-

DECC a2 ING cially its interior, de-
AND pends in large measure
FURNISHING upon the proper co-op-
THE HOME eration of the owner

with the architect. The
owner is much more
prone to consider himself as qualified to dis-
pense with the services of the architect when
the subject is the decorating and furnishing

of his rooms than he is in: matters of désign:

Which pertain to the exterior. This is only
natural. How many of one’s friends can
one name who will not be very sure not
only that they know exactly what they
want in the decorating and furnishing of
their homes, but who are as ready to as-
sume that they know how to get what they
want. No one is so ready to acknowledge
disappointment and dissatisfaction with the
work of an architect who has been willing
to assume that his client is really able to
direct the decorating and furnishing of his
or her home as the man or woman who has
had the experience. But even after such an
experience the majority of owners do not
realize the cause of their misfortune. They
cannot be made to understand that had they
co-operated with the architect and allowed
him to perform the function for which he
is qualified, and not they, they would un-
doubtedly be the architect’s strongest cham-
pions, instead of his decryers. The benefit
of such a relation between architect and

client is twofold, the client is satis—
fied and the architect has the satisfac-
tion of having done his work well

and of making of his client a friend and a
business asset. Houses which have been de-
signed and decorated under such conditions
never fail to evoke general admiration. It
is such a group of which we illustrate the

following interiors. These houses, except
one which is at Orange, are situated
in Montclair, New Jersey, a town of

some sixteen thousand inhabitants, which is
reached by a half hour’s train ride from New
York. They are all the work of Frank E.

Wallis, a New York architect, whose prac-
tice is largely confined not only to subur-
ban houses, but to the town of Montclair,
where his work is well known to the towns-
people.

This architect has made himself the inti-
mate friend of his clients and has faithfully
reflected in their homes what this inti-
mate personal contact has revealed to him.
Each client is for him an individual case
which he _ solves according to its circum-—
stances, the solution being based always on
personal knowledge of his clients’ likes and
dislikes, their social position and all the other
elements that enter into the making of the
home. Possessed: of this information, he is
really in a position to say that he knows
what his clients want. The rest depends
entirely upon his own capacity and resource—
fulness as a designer.

It is Mr. Wallis’ theory that at least one
room in the suburban house should have its
basis on some historic style or period. On
this room, he believes, the designer should
lavish his most conscientious study, not
slavishly to reproduce some historical exam-
ple which seems applicable to the case in
hand, but to interpret the characteristics
of the ‘style in which he is working. In
thus rendering architecture he is not an ar-
chaeologist who reproduces, but an architect
who creates on a given basis under new con-
ditions, modifying his basis when the con-
tions demand it. The variety of Mr. Wallis’
interiors shows how well his style theory
works in practice. The reader will note in
those rooms how the characteristics of each
style have been brought out by the color
of the materials as well as by the simplicity
or ornateness of the design, as the case may
be. The confidence of client in architect is
shown in these interiors, especially by the fact
that the architect was not only designer and
decorator, but was consulted in the selection
of the furnishings which help in no unimpor-
tant part to produce the total effect. It should
be mentioned also that cost which is generally
Supposed to be in proportion to the effect
desired stands in no such relation in the
design of these rooms, some of the best in
design being the most economical financially.
The paramount consideration was of archi-
tectural propriety, and in many cases it
was the strictest adherence to the archi-
tectural requirements of the case that,
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NOTES AND COMMENTS. 67

The interior decora-

CHARLES tion of Mr. F. S. Flow-
FREDERICK er’s residence, 612 Fifth
NAEGELE avenue, New York, calls

A PAINTER OF attention ‘to the dec-
INTERIOR OWatiy eC. ow, ork of
DECORATION Charles Frederick Nae-

gele, an artist, who has
hitherto been known chiefly as a successful
portrait painter. The great sense for color
which characterizes his portrait work and his
feeling for the beauty of form qualify him in
a high degree for decorative painting of an
architectural character.

We illustrate on page 88 a model for a
medal, designed by Mr. Naegele in 1902,
to commemorate the four hundredth an-
niversary of the discovery of America.
In the center of the medal is carved the
head of Columbus, and as the artist could
obtain no authentic likeness of the great
navigator, the head is made to express his
reputedcharacteristicsandgenius. Itisshaped
to show his imaginative or intuitive qualities;
the forehead indicates the qualities of a man
who can command and control others, while
the perceptive qualities are also indicated.
The sensitive mouth and chin show still an-
other characteristic of the great discoverer.
The central coin bearing the head is sur-
rounded by wavy lines indicating the ocean,
while sea monsters and the ships Santa
Maria, Pinta and Nina are also to be seen.
The rudders are all turned in, as if to go
to an unknown land, of which only Columbus
knew. The late Augustus St. Gaudens said
that this was one of the best commemora-
tive medals he had ever seen, especially for
its symbolic qualities.

Among Mr. Naegele’s ideal figure paintings
the best known is “Divinity of Motherhood,’’
a work which was awarded a gold medal at
Boston in 1900 and sold for $3,000. In these
ideal heads, the painter shows his peculiar
style more emphatically than in his portraits;
here his brush is restrained neither by the
features nor by the client’s preferences.
The great charm in these ideal compositions
is not the charm of sensuous, passionate
womanhood; it is the charm of untouched
girlhood or of true motherhood which he so
strongly, yet delicately portrays. It is the
inner life, the life of the soul which is depict-
ed in the eyes, in the expression of the face
and often even in the hands. Sometimes
he may go too far as regards minute ex-

ecution, but this is due to the desires of
his sitters. He never strives after a photo-
graphic likeness, but penetrates into the

mind and character of the person he is called

upon to paint. For the background of his
ideal heads and even for his portraits, Mr.
Naegele often uses wood of different kinds,
which he treats with a varnish. This simple
process has proved to be very decorative and
brings out in the wood certain atmospheric
qualities, whose presence in that material
have not been suspected by artists.

Mr. Naegele also paints landscapes of fine
tonal quality and it is this versatility which
accounts for his success as a decorative
painter and decorator. Whenever he paints
a panel, a frieze, or a decorative picture he
undertakes to harmonize it with the room,
or vice versa. His “Ring of Youth,” a paint-
ing in a bedroom of Mr. Flower’s house, re-
ferred to above, illustrates admirably the
qualities which characterize his work. There
is a charming happy youthfulness in the
picture, a grace and harmony conducive to a
feeling of ‘repose and joy. It is also to be
commented that Mr. Naegele is a man of a
philosophical turn of mind and that there
is frequently to be found hidden in his paint—
ings a symbolism where the observer least
expects. 1th os DheeRine of Youth.2. sforsan—
stance, appeals to the higher senses and
seems to express the eternal youth which
exists in all whose minds and souls are open
to a higher life. A critical observer will
at once realize that the impression is not
one of naked figures. True, they are partly
nude, but not naked, and are characterized
by a chastity far from prudery. This dec-
orative frieze goes around all four walls of
the room. One fragment, the largest, covers
the width of a wall, which is uninterrupted
by any doors, windows, or mantel. It shows
dancing nymphs, who form a ring. The
figures are approximately life size and there
is much swing and grace in the lines. There
is a special charm in another fragment dec-
orating one of the smaller walls and placed
over a door, thus forming a panel by itself
(Fig. 4). The figures and the landscape
are here much smaller. The picture repre-
sents a procession passing in the distance.
On a hill may be seen a temple to which the
offerings to the victor are being carried. One
of the nymphs, who has large, graceful
wings, “to wing her steps,’ half flies ahead
of the others. She is followed by a group
playing a hymn of victory on antique musical
instruments. A little girl leads the way be-
fore the conqueror, a peaceful, gentle ‘hero
who has placed his dear one on the horse
which he leads himself. In the distance
follow other: nymphs carrying garlands of
flowers. The picture very much suggests

Claude Lorraine, only it shows a more mod-=

ARCHITECTURAL’ RECORD.

ICG ale

ern technique. This section of the frieze
is the most beautiful part of the ring and

would form a very decorative painting by
itself. True to Naegele’s ideal of maidenhood
are two girls shown in Fig. 7, who are watch-

ing the passing procession. The heads are
nearly life size and the bodies are partly hid—
den in roses. The girls appear to be standing
in a bower of roses. Garlands of roses also
form the connecting links of the frieze all
aruund the walls.

The coloring of Mr. Naegele’s compositions
is governed by scientific rules. Blue, red and
yellow are the primary colors which form a
harmony of grays. Green is produced by mix-
ing yellow and blue; purple by mixing blue
and red; orange by mixing yellow and red,
the secondary colors. To these laws of color
harmony Mr. Naegele is true, as well in his
painting as in the decoration of rooms, such
as we illustrate. For him the ground colors
are the chords on which the melody is based.
The frieze “The Ring of Youth,’ for ex-
ample, decorates a room which is intended
as a place of rest for a man overburdened
with work and nervous strain. The prevail-
ing tone of the room is a soft peacock blue.
Nature is, on the whole, a safe model to
follow. The dark color of the earth, the
middle tints of the mountains and trees
and the light tints of the sky produce a re-
freshing and restful impression, and if we

THE RING OF YOUTH.

(Published by permission

chceose the same scale of values in decora-
tion, and also in clothing, we receive the
most harmonious impression. Mr. Naegele
has selected a carpet of dark peacock
blue for this room. The walls are of a
trifle lighter shade and the frieze is like-
wise harmonized to the same dark blue,
which is repeated in the landscape. The
other colors used in the frieze are all in har-
mony with this blue. The ceiling is plain and
of a light color. The furniture is in dark
mahogany. The room should soothe the
most irritated nerves.

The room opposite to that just described
is a green room. Mr. Naegele believes with
the occultists regarding the influence of color
and the methods of using it. This room
is the room for thought. The tone of the
green is soft. It is repeated in the frieze,
showing a sea with a wide endless horizon,
and dunes, forming wavy lines, where cedars
and shore saks grow. The coloring harmon-
izes with the green ground-tint and is kept
in pinks, delicate purples and greens. The
irnpression conveyed is one of a vast in-
finity and there is nothing in the room to
attract th2 material senses, because the de-
signer intends it to be symbolic of intellec-
tual life. It is calculated to lead the thoughts
onward, without distracting them by ma-
terial objects.

A more cheerful character was desired by

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 69

o
a

Oo >

NEARER VIEW OF FRIEZE SHOWN ON PAGE 70.

of Chas. F. Naegele.)

the young mistress of the house for her
room, hence a light blue was selected. Thus
the purpose of the room, the individuality
of the owner and the harmony of color have
all been observed in the decorations of the
house. ‘Il:e artist has carried this so far as
to take into consideration the impression
preduced on a person standing in the halls
and looking into the rooms. The halls are
kept in dark red, symbolic of the earth, and
on lcoking into the peacock blue room, the
keynote of which is yellow, one gets the im-
pression of a harmonious chord. Looking in
the opposite direction, into the green room,
one again gets the impression of a symphony.

Not only is it difficult sometimes to carry
out a harmonious scale of color in accord-
ance with the practical needs of a house, but
the wishes of the owners also make it almost
impossible. In many cases they will in-
troduce notes which destroy all harmony and

shew an utter lack of artistic understand-
ing. Hard whites are brought into a room of
soft, dark tints, ‘“‘to cheer it up”; trifles

of bric-a-brac are placed where nothing
should distract the attention from the main
scheme of decoration. Because Mr. Naegele’s
theories are based on artistic and scientific
laws he usually succeeds in bringing con-
flicting desires into harmony.

He is filled with enthusiasm to carry the
beautiful into the lives of all. The rich are

to be ennobled by an environment which shall
be not only opulent but harmonious. While
the wealthy have frequently been too ma-
terialistic to care for the refining influences
of art, others have been too poor even to
be able to realize what they have been
missing.

To the latter also Mr. Naegele is trying to
bring art and beauty, and he has worked
eut a novel plan of art exhibitions to estab-
lish museunis, which shall be owned by the
public. The plan is intended chiefly for small
towns which have hitherto been without any-
thing to develop the artistic instinct. Last
winter Mr. Naegele arranged in Watertown,
N. Y., an exhibition of paintings by the best
New York artists, at the same time holding
lectures to acquaint the inhabitants with
the rrinciples of art. An entrance fee of ten
cents was charged, which also entitled the
holder of the ticket to a vote for his favorite
picture. The pictures receiving the most
votes were purchased by the money taken
in at the door and formed the nucleus for a
public gatlery. At the universal desire of the
Watertownites, the first exhibition was soon
followed by a second, last winter, and. this
winter there will be similar exhibits, not only
in Watertown, but in several other small
cities. The Federation of Women’s Clubs is
planning a State Art Institute and some
prominent members of that organization have

DHE “ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

BS a a |

FIG. 3. THE BLUE ROOM IN MR. F. S. FLOWER’S RESIDENCH—
VIEW SHOWING “THE RING OF YOUTH.”
612 Fifth Avenue, New York. Chas. F. Naegele, Artist.

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THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

FIG. 5. DETAIL OF FRIEZE IN GREEN ROOM—MR. F. S. FLOWER’S RESIDENCE.

612 Fifth Avenue, New York.

approached Mr. Naegele for assistance to
establish elsewhere exhibitions similar to
those in Watertown. All of which promises
a more thorough appreciation in the future
of art in the United States.

O-OR:

“Arab architecture is

the best presentment of

THE ARAB Arab character that re-
IN mains to us,” says L.
March Phillips in a re-
cent issue of the Con-
temporary Review. ‘‘No
historical evidence can
furnish forth to the understanding a like-
ness of the man so expressive as this ar-
chitecture offers to the eye. In its eager
inventiveness, in the capricious changes, com-
plications and inflections of its designs, in
its impulsive energy, and above all, its in-
herent weakness and instability, there is de-
picted in this style, if we would but coolly
and rationally examine it, a visible repre-
sentation of the Arab as we know him in
history, or as he is to be met with to-day
in the flesh in those deserts to which the
progress of more stable races has once again
relegated him. The stamp and impress taken
of him by these eccentric arches and pur-
poseless entanglements of tracery are the
stamp and impress which he gave to all his
undertakings. His impetuous, yet ill-sus-
tained campaigns have this character; his
so-called civilization, so imposing, yet so fu-
gitive, has it; all his thoughtful and in-
tellectual achievements, informed with vague
visions and transcendental guesses, have it;
above all the man himself, full of fiery, short-

ARCHITECTURE

lived and contradictory impulses, is the in-

carnation of it.’’

Chas. F. Naegele, Artist.

“From the moment of the Arab’s first ap-
pearance on the world’s stage we are con-
scious of a new force acting on human af-
fairs. The old stock of warring ideals which
throughout the Hast and West, among the
attackers and defenders of classicalism, had
given rise to fluctuations of regular recur-
rence and similar character, was with the
coming of the Arab suddenly modified by the
addition of a hitherto unknown ingredient,
the effect of which was instantaneous. As a
dash of petroleum stimulates an unwilling
fire, so the Arab ardor fanned to a blaze
the general conflagration which was consum-
ing the old order of things. Destruction, the
clearing of the ground for a new growth,
was the main purpose of that age, and as a
destructive agent the Arab was without a
peer. That terrific energy of his, so furious-
ly rapid in its progress, so irresistible in its
attack, so blasting in its effects, is compar-
able only to the light and glancing motions
of tongues of flame. But yet, on the other
hand, if the Arab energy is like fire, swift
and irresistible, it is like fire, fickle. In all
affairs of whatever kind, in which the Arab
has been concerned, fickleness, equally with
energy, plays its part. One is constantly
reminded, in dealing with him, or noting his
behavior in history, of the lack in him of
that faculty of solid reason which lends such
unmistakable coherence and continuity to
the designs of the Western nations.’’

“But if this is a true reading of the Arab
in war, it will be true of him in other things
also. And so I think it is. His whole civil-
ization may be taken as a further illustra-
tion of it. If that civilization rose and ex-
panded with the rapidity of all Arab designs,
its abrupt and entire disappearance was not
less characteristic.”’

NOTES

AND COMMENTS. 73

FIG. 6.
612 Fifth Avenue, New York.

Since the publication

THE GRANT of the Washington Park

MONUMENT Commission’s plans for
SITE, the future development

of the capital on an

WASHINGTON, esthetic basis, there
D.C. has appeared, from time

to time, strong opposi-
tion to their execution. This opposition has
emanated either from certain representatives
of the people who are still in that state of
blissful ignorance which Mr. Speaker Cannon
so characteristically voiced when he de-
manded to know what an architect is, or,
if that, that certain individuals have cre—
ated a situation in which their motives are
open to a highly unfavorable construction.
The latest development of the opposition cen-
ters on the placing of the Grant Memorial
in regard to which the local Chapter of the
Institute of American Architects passed on
Nov. 1, 1907, the following resolution:

“In view of the recent publicly expressed
comments upon the proposed location of the
‘Grant Memorial’ adverse to the site, and
condemning the destruction of trees, and a
general denunciation of the whole plan of
which the location of this monument is a
part, it seems proper for a local association
of men practicing a profession involving the
study and decision of similar problems, to
express their opinion in regard to this
criticism, and to point out what they deem to
be misconceptions of the dominating plan,
and inaccuracies regarding some of the de-
tails.

“We are in hearty accord with all efforts
to preserve trees, both in the parks and
streets, and will render all aid in our power
to avert the destruction of any of them. We
suggest, however, that records will show

that trees can be moved with safety when

DETAIL OF FRIEZE IN GREEN ROOM—MR. F. S. FLOWER’S RESIDENCE.

Chas. F. Naegele, Artist.

occasion demands it; and we assume that
due consideration was given to this ques-
tion in the case of the location of the Grant
monument, and that the trees under discus-
sion were found by some competent authority
to be unworthy of the labor involved to move
them. We can understand and sympathize
with the aversion to a change on the part
of those who planted them and have watched
them grow to maturity. It is a misfor-
tune not only to these individuals, but to the
City, that no guiding hand pointed out their
proper location, in accord with a general
scheme for the whole extent of the Mall, in
the lack of which separate and unrelated
plantings have been dotted in it; these plant-
ings having in each case their main axis
crossing that of the Mall.

“We are in favor of the location of public
buildings on the south side of Pennsylvania
avenue, which is a part of the plan as recom-
mended by the Park Commission. We de-
plore the fact that this Commission has not
the legal standing to which its plans and its
membership entitle it, and we regret that
this primal recognition has not been given.

“To us, however, the dominating need is
that the laying out of the roadways, parks,
etc., and the location of the public buildings,
statues, etc., shall be made in accordance
with a coherent and complete plan; coherent
in that it shall provide for the proper and
seemly relations of the parts, one to the
other; complete in that it shall provide for
all of the various needs present or anticipated
for the Capital city of a nation, promising
the future that we look forward to for our
own.

“This city is fortunate in having been born
by such a plan, which has been reviewed by a
commission composed of men whose quali-
fications cannot be successfully challenged,

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

eee eC CET ET CTETEE CUCU TEE CERET COCO ECUE EU E Eee

Ged.

FRAGMENT OF FRIEZE, ‘“‘THE RING OF YOUTH’’—MR. F. 8. FLOWER’S

RESIDENCE.

612 Fifth Avenue, New York.

and they have recommended its readoption.
No other plan similarly considered has been
presented.

“Therefore, resolved, That the Washington
Chapter of the American Institute of Archi-
tects endorses most heartily the wisdom of
the Park Commission in adhering to the
original plan of L’Enfant as endorsed by
Washington and Jefferson, and in extending
its principles in their plans for the greater
Washington.

“That this chapter considers the vista
treatment of the Mall, as contemplated by
them, a return to first principles, and by
far the most logical, effective and monumen-
tal treatment yet suggested, and that a
strict adherence to their plans will give
to the American people the possibilities for
the most beautiful capital in the-world.

“We affirm that, proceeding under a fixed
plan, the amount of expenditure involved
is less than would be required in proceeding
as has been the custom, without co-ordina-
tion of the units or the co-operation of those
controlling them.

“We are confident that the necessity for
the adoption of a comprehensive plan will
be generally recognized, and would call at-
tion to the fact tha! when adopted, the first
step towards its fulfillment shall be the
planting of irees in their allotted places,
for while roadways and buildings may be
constructed as needed, trees are the planting

of one generation for the enjoyment of their |

successors.
“Resolved, That this expression of our
views be sent to the Honorable Secretary of

Chas. F. Naegele, Artist.

War as the representative of the Govern-
ment on the Grant Memorial Commission in
charge of the work of its erection.”

The year 1907, though
it failed to equal its
predecessor in the num-
ber or cost of new build-
ings constructed, marks
the breaking through of
another stratum of
ether by the forty-odd-
story skyscraper. One might almost say two
new atmospheric strata have been pene-
trated as we pass from the four-hundred-foot
monster, without transition, to one of over
six hundred feet in height. To complete the
picture there is missing only the air-ship
to “honk-honk’ them aside, but this defi-
ciency of our imagination can readily supply
to the accompaniment of the pneumatic rivet-
ing machine which is heard on high in piere-
ing warning.

As cities have developed, their skyline has
been broken at first by the devout with the
spires of their churches, and later by the
ambitious of commerce. To this develop-
ment has been added another stage, for now
we possess genuine tower architecture as an
advertising feature on a rental basis. When-
ever we have completed an extensive struc-
ture we have endeavored to force it a little
beyond and above in order to distinguish it
among the mass of its fellows, hence the
Madison Square Garden and Chicago Audi-
torium Towers, both distinctive parts of their
respective structures. But now we get to a

SKYSCRAPING
UP TO DATE

NOTES AND

point where the tower is practically the whole
thing. The modest heights of the Singer and
Metropolitan Life Buildings lost their iden-
tity in the mass of other similarly modest
structures, but their development skyward
will be difficult to surpass, for to rival it on
the lower end of Manhattan Island would
necessitate the tearing down of many costly
buildings. But it is unsafe to prognosticate,
in view of recent wrecking operations in that
territory.

In many cases the lofty buildings are pro-
tected and isolated by their own surrounding
property, but already in the case of the Sin-
ger Building the growth of the huge City In-
vesting Company’s Building has amalga-
mated itself with it, and as the white trim-
mings of the Singer Tower accords fairly
well with that of its aspiring neighbor, the
composite architecture is not without attrac-
tion, especially when viewed from a North
River ferryboat. In fact, for appearance
sake, the architect of the Investing Building
might have dispensed with a broken skyline
for the Singer Tower supplies this gratis for
all time.

The growth of a great city skyward may
be unattractive to thase who see no inspira-
tion in the new problems which it involves,
or unreasonable to those who disapprove of
it for economic reasons, but when one be-
holds these dark grey monsters at dusk,
studded with a myriad of incandescent lights,
the effect is one of mystery and might, which
is strictly of this generation.

The advent of the six

MECHANICAL hundred foot building
PROBLEMS has called into being
OF THE an important readjust-
SIX-HUNDRED ment of the mechanical
FOOT transit problem for
BUILDING skyscrapers. The re-
sult is a new type

of elevator called “‘the traction,” with power
machinery located above the shaft instead
in its accustomed place in the cellar. To
create ample safety devices for the cars of
such a system, is a serious problem. The
possible precipitation of a carload of pas-
Sengers from a six-hundred-foot height is
not a pleasant theme for contemplation. It
is only fair to say, however, that the num-—
ber of passengers carried in them daily is
not large, and it may consequently be as—
serted that contractors supplying such in-
stallations are of the highest reliability.
Another development which has _ been
brought about in building construction by
the very tall building is a scientific treat-—
ment of foundations. The prosecution of this

COMMENTS. 75,

branch of building construction now pro-
ceeds from a corps of specialists with ade-
quate equipment to execute as well as design
foundations to support the most gigantic su-
perstructures. Fortunately rock bottom is
not beyond human reach on Manhattan Isl-
and and the stability of the building is bib-
lically assured. And if our present develop-
ment continues we shall have to go still
higher to gratify our ambitions, outreaching
the Tower of Babel, but without its disas-
trous consequences.

As the park develop-
ment idea grows in the
minds of the American
people, it would be well

NEW YORK’S

K s

FAR to realize that within
OPPORTUNITY 4, short radius of the
heart of busy New

York there lies a region
wild and romantic of unsurpassed possibility
of use. This region occupies the top of the
Palisades running north from Fort Lee and
reaching to a point opposite Irvington, a dis-
tance of nearly fifteen miles. Its protection
from the invasion of the suburbanite it owes
to its inaccessibility, though it is already be-
coming in its southern portion a growing
collection of domiciles. In all the cities vis-
ited by the writer, there has appeared to
him no such possibility as the top of this fa-
mous cliff overlooking an equally renowned
river. The neighborhoods of Boston, Chicago,
Philadelphia, Baltimore, St. Louis, Detroit
boast, each in its way, of a series of reser-
vations, beautified alike by Nature and the
hand of man; but in those cities there is no
such place or possibility like this. For miles
there stretches this hill, a cliff washed by the
Hudson on the east, with a slope over a beau-
tiful country to westward. At the southern end
a road runs up a long hill from Fort Lee, then
northward. For a good distance this road
is in good condition, and there are many
cliff-top dwellers along its way, and even a
little hamlet where some prominent in the
art-world have availed themselves of this
natural opportunity; but compared with the
number of city folk who will some day be
forced out by the growth of trade and land
values, these are but a handful. As the
tract lies in two states, which for some
time have been co-operating in acquiring
land for park purposes, it would seem wise
if a national acquirement of ownership could
be consummated. Of course, the Niagara

reservation is all that New York could de-
mand, but as the bulk of the territory lies
in New Jersey, and as there is practically no
surrounding population in

that state to

76 THE ARCHITEC TURAL. RECOKD.

create a “‘local, feeling,’’? a government own-
ership would seem wise.

The view is especially fine from the upper
portion at a point about opposite Hastings,
where a jutting polygonical column of rock
allows an unobstructed view up and down
the river. Here five hundred feet above the
surface of the water, one can look entirely
over the country opposite and across the
Long Island Sound to the ridge running
along Long Island. A prominent architect
of skyscrapers once visiting this place said
that he was more impressed with the sense
of height here than he was at the top of the
Hifel Tower in Paris, and attributéd this to
the absence of artificial barriers, for here
cne is able to look down the sheer rise ov?
rock to the tree tops below. A trolley line
along its ridge would make this region visit-
abie and permit a remarkable view of the
lower Hudson, far superior to that ob-
tained in the course of a ride upon
the river itself. ‘The winter view is very
beautiful when the snow-clad country lies
stretched in its white raiment with the ice-
bound river as its border. At the northern
terminus of the cliff is the widening of the
river known as the Tappan Zee, dear to the
heart of Washington Irving, and here ends
one of the most remarkable trips that any
city in this country can permit its denizens
to enjoy, for such a wilderness and outlook
combined is a strange result of inaccessibil-
ity to the daily commuter.

A summer number of the
North American Review con-
tained a little article on ‘‘De-
sign as Applied to Cities.’
In its somewhat brief com-
pass it was necessarily gen-
eral; but a portion of it may
be summarized for the sake
of the final suggestion: ‘‘The fact is that the
underlying principle of structural beauty in
the ground-plan of a city must rest on util-
ity. The root of it all is as old as the primi-
tive town, or tun, of the progenitors of the
English people in their German birthplace.
Dwellings were built around a tree or a hill
which was used as the town meeting-place,
the whole being surrounded by a common or
neutral ground and ditch, which was to be-
come later the wall, and, when that was
razed, the boulevard, as in Paris, in Vienna,
and other old towns of Europe.’”’ That is to
say, the authors explain, the thing which is
desirable in the ground-plan of a city is that
“simple element of design which forms cen-
ters, with streets radiating from them, and
fits them in all cases to irregularities of the

PROPER
DESIGN
FOR
SUBURBS

ground. By these means that variety which
comes of fitness is invited on the part of the
architect, who has now little enough of in-
spiration and finds it difficult to be rid of
monotony where there are nothing but in-
terminable straight streets, with few places
from which a building may be seen from a
distance.’””’ Whatever may be thought of
present conditions, architects certainly would
be glad to be given sites more favorable to
effectiveness, and the following suggestions
give immediate practicalness to this wish:
“There is no reason why the extension of
towns, now being forced by rapid traznsit,
should not be along streets ordered with ref-
erence to the natural features of the ground;
why they should not be made sightly in the
character of their houses, as well as sanitary
and comfortable; why parks should not be
provided, street trees planted and properly
cared for, as well as private gardens, lerge
or small, as the case may be. That these
things should be effected by comprehensively
and artistically devised plans, to be made as
soon as practicable, is of the utmost impor-
tance, as will be admitted when it is recalled
that no end of depressing ugliness and in-
calculable expense has resulted in the past
from lack of such enlightened forethought.

Now, when people living thirty
miles away from their business are about as
near it, so far as time is concerned, as they
were a few years ago when five miles away,
there is no economy in crowding them into
narrow and ill-ventilated streets, and it is
obviously to the interest of property-owners
to insist that their values shall not be de-
pressed because somebody, a dozen or a
hundred years ago, devised a plan that offi-
cials are not willing to change. That the
proper ordering of streets in places not built
up is, next to rapid transit itself, the most
pressing need in present urban conditions
cannot be questioned, and the fact that such
ordering is to the present and future interest
of everyone concerned—and everyone is con-
cerned—should be kept in view, or muca of
the benefit of rapid transit will for the pres-
ent be lost.”

Now that the Charles
River improvement in Bos-
ton is rapidly taking shape,
and one stage after another
of the great undertaking is
completed, and with accom-~
plishment there come new
plans of greater splendor, it
is interesting and not a little encouraging to
recall the improvement’s history. The
embankment was one of the earliest, if not

CHARLES
RIVER
PROGRESS
IN BOSTON

NOTES AND

indeed the first, feature proposed for the new
park system a generation ago. But the
Scheme has been very slow in realization.
Though ‘the Charlesbank’” with its play-
grounds was followed by the improvements
on the Cambridge shore, and this by the
Metropolitan park improvements, and now
the latter by the dam and causeway with its
locks, yet even today the broad, parklike
drive along the Boston side of the river is
only a dream. Still the conservative houses
of Beacon street turn haughty backs on the
nouveau river plan. But curiously enough,
a main source of the opposition to elaborate
improvement lies in a condition precisely the
reverse of that which appears. The resi-
dents in the Beacon street houses have
learned to love the water view and in turn-
ing their backs to it they are really taking
the position of frightened mothers protecting
the offspring who hide behind their skirts.
Dining room, library, and my lady’s chamber
are at the back of many a house that stands
with hypercritical front to Beacon street;
and the late opposition to a broadening and
embellishing of the drive is based, not on
the indifference of the householders, but on
their great concern lest something may be
done to shut off their water view. Yet little
by little the improvement marches on; little
by little “the Beacon street folk’ have
yielded their points, and though there is no
disposition to do them injustice, and it would
not be like New England to make so radical
an improvement suddenly and quickly, still
the work is progressing. The earliest sug-
gested park feature promises still to be the
last accomplished, but when done to be the
most architectural, most splendid, and in-
dividual of all.

A suggestion — originally
made, we believe, by Comp-

ERC. -tepliee Mets oe) Ww ovo,
OF and occasionally commented
LOCAL upon and added to since by

various persons—deserves to
be pushed along. It is that
municipalities would do well
to conduct, as a sort of bureau of informa-
tion for their citizens, a small permanent ex-
hibition that should be up to date in its ex-
hibit of current municipal undertakings. It
is pointed out that the expense need amount
to very little, as it could be appropriately
housed in a room of the city hall or would
be sufficiently instructive to be given space
in the public library. Such an exhibit would
consist largely of photographs and drawings
—the latter mainly architectural, such as
plans for new schools and fire and police
department buildings, bridges, etc. The pho-

CITY WORK

COMMENTS. 77.

tographs would have mainly to do with work
under construction, and if these were regu-
larly taken at intervals of a month they
would offer to the taxpayers interesting evi-
dence of the degree of progress in city work.
Short descriptions should accompany the ex-
hibits and the whole, if accessible, would be
not only of much interest and instruction to
the citizens affected—but to strangers de-
sirous of knowing what a city is doing, and
of valuable suggestiveness to Officials, pro-
fessional men, contractors and builders from
other cities. The exhibit would not only
tend to keep the citizen in more intimate
touch with his city, but it would probably
increase his public spirit and pride in it and
tend to make him more amenable to appeals
for money. ‘Municipal Journal’ discussing
the matter, imagines the case of the city
waterworks. “It seems probable,” the paper
says, “that if the average citizen could have
placed attractively before him photographs,
say, of a filtration plant, the pumps which
raise the water and the reservoir into which
it is discharged, with the cost of construct-
ing and operating these, the figures setting
forth briefly the relation between such costs
and the consumption, he would then be more
impressed by the appeals of the water de-
partment for less waste of water, realizing
that he does not create water simply by
opening a faucet as a magician plucks money
from the air, but that expenditures of fuel,
labor, and enormous construction costs were
necessary to bring the water to the faucet.
A photograph of a nearly empty impounding
reservoir, in a dry season, might be more
impressive than any newspaper notice cau-
tioning care in the use of water.’

Very interesting work,
from both the artistic and

MURAL : : i ; :
sociological point of view, is

«PAINTINGS the mural decoration which
AND is going into the Juvenile
BAD BOYS Court at Chicago. Krehbiel

has in hand the decoration

for the court room itself.
Allen C. Philbrick is responsible for the pan-
els that form a deep frieze around the wait-
ing room, the more advanced condition of
his work making possible an appreciation of
his scheme. There are no allegories of crime
and justice and punishment, that would prob-
ably fail of significance to the tremblingly
waiting lads. On the contrary the first
panel shows boys playing baseball in a field,
with other youngsters having lunch under a
tree—their kind teacher present, by way of
showing that they have not skipped school.
The second panel shows a regiment march-
ing through an afternoon city street with

78 THE ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

the crowd cheering. The significance is not
quite as clear. Perhaps it pictures the joys
that wait upon soldierly obedience. A third
panel shows a summer evening on the Lake
Shore esplanade at Chicago, and a descrip-
tion says, “Purple twilight, moonlit waters,
the sweet curves of the shore, repeated in
the broad steps of the paved beach, make as
fine a setting as any of Alma-Tadema’s
classic terraces,’ and the “‘groups of lightly
clad mothers and children, or dimly seen lov-
ers’? might belong, one percieves, to more ro-
mantic times and places than to Chicago in
1907. But that is one of the triumphs of
art—to show us the romance around us. The
panels are twelve feet long by four or five
high and a blue strip illustrating Lake Michi-
gan makes a continuous back-ground uniting
them all. The color scheme graduates from
the noontide brilliancy of the ball field to the
afternoon light of the street parade and so
“to the nocturnes in violets, blue and white.”
The whole conception seems to be a happy
one, naturally appealing to the boys in its
subjects, cheerful in the thoughts to which it
gives rise, wholesome in the state of mind it
ereates and the aspirations which it stimu-
lates. It subtly expresses the purpose for
which a juvenile court exists, and it is well
to find in the decoration of a structure the
spirit of the institution for which it is raised.
When that spirit is artistically expressed in
strictly American symbolism we have a na-
tive art.

In the recent reports is-

sued by municipal park
boards an interestingly sig-
nificant statement now and
then appears and reappears.
One may glibly say that it
isn’t =< true;. and is. never
i likely to be; but it is made
by authority, and by men who have studied
and thoroughly know the local situation. It
is that the park system is complete, or prac-
tically so. For instance, the report of the
Cambridge commissioners to the city council
for the year 1900, said, “Cambridge needs no
further park extensions, other than a park
development of the Fresh Pond section’”’;
and the superintendent of the Minneapolis
parks, reporting to his commissioners, is
quoted as declaring the Minneapolis park
system ‘‘as complete as it can be made,’
needing only some further development of
the beauty and usefulness of the present
tracts. Neither Cambridge nor Minneapolis
is standing still in population. They are
good types—one Hast, one West; one com-
paratively large, the other relatively small.
They are both cities in which, through a

GLEANED
FROM
PARK

REPORTS

term of years, the park policy has been pro-
gressive, generous and foresighted. Neither
one would consider its system complete if it
were adequate only for the city of today; in
both the park ideal is high. The statements
therefore are significant as showing that
there really is an attainable end to the park
rainbow; that it is not only conceivable but
actually true that at last, without bank-
ruptey or inconvenience, a city richly blessed
by nature with park possibilities may acquire
all the appropriate park sites that are needed
to give to it a well rounded system adequate
to the many and varied demands, local ana
general, made nowadays on the parks. The
event is a notable development in American
park history, a milestone in our municipal
progress. There are some other items of in-
terest in the park reports. In Wilkes-Barre
it has been estimated that the local deposits
under the park are sufficient to purchase and
beautifully develop a new park of much
larger dimensions. In Cambridge the Wash-
ington elm is reported, after expert examina-
tion, to be in excellent condition; and the
disfiguring iron bands have been removed,
inch rods with nuts and washers serving
now to keep the limbs from spreading.

In the discussions that
marked the eighth Interna-
tional Housing Congress,
held in London in the sum-
mer, there was a good deal
which was of interest to
architects. ‘The full reports.
of the Congress have only
recently been coming to this country, with
returning delegates and-in special publica-
tions, for the proceedings were not fully re-
ported in the press. A point which much en-
gaged the attention of the Congress was bet-
ter inspection. The president referred to this
in his address as one of the matters on which
all the delegates: were agreed. In defining
the requirement he said, “Systematic and
complete inspection of dwellings independent
of local and monetary interests, as opposed
to those of the public health, and careful
registration of each dwelling, giving the size,
rent, number of rooms, light and air space,
and providing a minimum cubic air space
per room are essential to the maintenance
of decent housing conditions. ‘The renova-
tion or destruction of unhealthy areas or
slums is necessary in many places.” On
the latter point, he stated that during the
last forty years English municipalities have
“built 20,506 dwellings, with 56,949 rooms,
at an expenditure not exceeding the cost of
two modern battleships, £6,000,000 having
been expended by the authorities in slum

INTER”
NATIONAL
HOUSING
CONGRESS

NOTES AND

buying and £4,000,000 in building new dwell-
ings.”” Two of the national housing inspec-
tors of the Dutch government told of the
supervision exercised in that country under
the law of 1901. This requires the central
government to supervise not only the build-
ing of new houses, and the alteration, re-
building and maintenance of houses, but
also the degree of crowding. They announced
that under this law upwards of 800 houses
had been condemned. Furthermore ‘‘town
extension plans have to be approved by the
Central Public Health Service, under whose
authority the inspectors operate, for all
towns with a population of over 10,000 or
whose population increases very rapidly—
unless exempted by special provision.’”? The
Secretary of the Congress, who is also Sec-
retary of the National Housing Committee
of England, suggested three possible lines of
action to do away with the “slum cottage,’’
which, he thought, is only a little better
than the slum barracks. These proceedings
are: (1) The raising of the minimum re-
quired in the by-laws that prescribe the
width of roads and space at the rear of a
dwelling. (2) The adoption of the German
method of town planning. (8) The granting
to town and district councils of the power
to prescribe the maximum number of houses
per acre to be built on land in certain zones
under their administration. An object of
this is to provide gardens. The general tone
of all the discussion is said to have been
very elevated, intelligent and reasonable;
and the work of the Congress appears to be
of a character which should especially ap-
peal to those architects interested in human-
itarian work.
A handsomely manu-
ENCYCLOPEDIA factured work in ten
OF volumes, half morocco,
ARCHITECTURE, is the new Encyclopedia

CARPENTRY Of Architecture, Carpen-
AND try and Building just
BUILDING published by the Ameri-

can School of Corre-
spondence of Chicago. The word encyclope-
diais,indeed,expressive of these books, which
embrace the various and complex subjects in-
volved in designing and constructing build-
ings. Their matter is equally suitable for
student or master, being intended, however,
chiefly for the ‘‘man on the job.”’ The thor-
oughly practical nature of the matter pre-
sented is due largely to the incorporation in
the work of the best papers by pupils of the
School.
The idea of an American encyclopedia of
Architecture and Building Construction is
not, of course, original in the case of the

COMMENTS. 79

work before us, but the new features which
the American Correspondence School Eney-
clopedia introduces, make it a very welcome
addition to the only works through which it
is possible to spread a greater amount of
popular knowledge on the science and art
of the architect and the building constructor.
Its influence is potent to instill a knowledge
of the fundamental principles of good design
and to foster an appreciation of all that is
admirable in architecture. The books, which
are of some three hundred odd pages each,
are profusely and attractively illustrated, and
this feature in itself makes them an im-
provement on similar encyclopedias which we
have seen. If the illustrations are sometimes
not as well chosen as they should be, or
inserted to add cheer to a particularly dry
part of the subject, one feels, at least, that
the effect which has been obtained, justifies
the means. ‘These illustrations, many of
which are half-tone reproductions of con-
temporary American domestic and commer-
cial architecture, are, in themselves, a very
interesting and representative series in which
some of the best recent suburban houses of
the West find a place.

The purely mechanical subjects of struc-
ture and equipment are treated in great de-
tail. There are chapters on the heating,
ventilating, plumbing, electrical, hardware,
plastering and painting trades; and carpen-
try, masonry, structural steel and reinforced
concrete constructions, also receive ample
space with numerous practical problems.

An instructive and valuable bibliography
prefaces each of the ten volumes.

It is pleasant in these

A NEW days of the rechauffé
SYSTEM OF in literature, when, out-
side the full flow of

CTs fiction, books are most-
TECTURAL ly fact-records, scien-
COMPOSITION tific, biographical or

otherwise, to encounter
such a work as that of Mr. John Beverley
Robinson, which he calls A New System of
Architectural Composition. Whatever may
be the merits or demerits in the execution
of this book, the conception as a whole is
original. Architectural works are limited in
their scope to either the purely historical or
the purely mechanical. Volumes we have in-

numerable, cataloguing and describing the
buildings of this, that and the other period
or country, monographs on church, stable or
house, all filled with the concrete facts, views
of buildings from a utilitarian, picturesque,
or historical point of view; and, on the other
hand, there are treatises on the engineering

80 THE “ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

of architecture, treatises which confine them-
selves to the strength of materials, the con-
struction of trussed roofs and other me-
chanical problems. The few books that have
been written upon the esthetic side of
building have been confined almost entireiy
to the criticism of individual buildings.

But in Mr. Robinson’s book we have
something quite new, a systematizing of
principles that have been known to architects
and used by them from time immemorial.
These principles of design he classifies in the
shape of formulae for the reference and
guidance of the designer who, unaided, might
go astray in their application to his daily
work. Each rule or principle that he lays
down seems incontrovertible, and to express
- well the accepted ideas of the best designers.
Especially interesting is the chapter on Sim-
ilarity, in which it is shown how important
an element of beauty in an architectural de-
sign is the similarity of its component parts,
as of a round dome with rounded arches, or
of a bulbous dome with arches of reflex
curvature.

But by far the most daring thing that the
book attempts is the classification of all
buildings into half a score of types. Here
the author himself seems hardly aware of
his audacity, for the whole matter is dis-

posed of in.a page of type, with no attempt
at excusing or explaining such an unparal-
leled flight—of fancy—we had almost said,

wére it not that the fancy in this case
expresses the facts so well that we are forced
to admit to ourselves the validity of the
classification. A like brevity and straight-
forwardness characterizes the work through-
out, the most sweeping statements of general
esthetic truths being laid down with the ut-
most nonchalanee, as if they were as much
matters of course as ‘the self-evident axioms
of geometry; as indeed they seem when the
author states them for us. This extreme
conciseness of statement is both a disad-
vantage and an advantage—a disadvantage
in that the interest which it arouses demands
a fuller treatment of detail for its gratifi-

eation, an advantage because the unsated
intelligence forthwith sets out upon a tour
of original thought, adducing further ex-
amples to support or contradict the views
expressed.

Another happy generalization is embodied
in the chapter on Proportion, in which the
author’s views are not wholly novel, but
explain and render practical matters which
have hiterto lain in the dark.

It is to be regretted that the book is not
more adequately illustrated. The cuts have
been reduced, evidently from motives of
economy, to a minimum, often too much to
illustrate clearly the points explained in the
text. The title, too, is somewhat of a misno-
mer. A New System of Architectural Com-
position gives an impression that the work
is intended to introduce a new style of de-
sign, whereas nothing is farther from the
facts; a New System of Teaching Architec-
tural Composition or Rules for Architectural
Composition, would better have conveyed the
book’s scope. The illustrations are taken
from all styles and periods, with no idea
in the author’s mind of originating a new
style. And it is this catholicity of taste and
fairness of judgment which is especially to
be commended.

NOTA BENE.

Not desiring to remain indefinitely at the
foot of thé geography class, to which the
“Globe,’’ New York, recently relegated the
Architectural Record, we would say that we
have again consulted our atlas and found
that Lake Geneva really is in Wisconsin and
not in Illinois, as it was printed under some
illustrations of Mr. Howard Shaw’s recent
work in the December issue.

Mr. Lewis H. Bacon informs us that he
was not the architect of Mr. J. W. Mitchell’s
house at Manchester, Mass., which we pub-—
lished in the November issue. We desire
herewith to correct the error and give credit
to its author, Mr. Willard M. Bacon.

Copyright 1908, by ‘‘ THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD COMPANY,’’ All rights reserved.
Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter, Post Office at New York, N. Y., Act of Congress of March 3, 1879.

VoL. XXIII. No. 2. FEBRUARY, 1908. Wao te No, 113

—

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SAA I AEE

HL LAL (a aE ML ALI
CAAA Na ACH WPS

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Page
GREEK ARCHITECTS, CONTRACTORS AND BUILDING OPERATIONS 81
I.—Illustrated. A. L. Frothingham.

THE BROOKLYN PLAZA AND THE PROJECTED BROOKLYN CEN-
TRAE CIBRARYescsccsomicci cee evene sc cocec cece oc Se eieeer OT
Illustrated. H. W. Frohne.

AN AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE.............. ee Saccasemes MEd
Tllustrated. William Herbert.

A PIONEER AMERICAN ARCHITECT, WILLIAM STRICKLAND.... 123
Tllustrated. E, Leslie Gilliams.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. Illustrated.................. ... 136
St. Louis School Buildings—Los Angeles and The
Billboards—Parks for Dubuque—Church in a
Theatre—H otel Decoration—The Architectural
League of America Establishes Individual
Membership.

PUBLISHED BY

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD CO,
President, CLINTON W. SwEET ‘Treasurer, F. W. Dopar

ice-Pres. &
Mae Mey. hn. W. Desmond Secretary, F. T. MILLER

11-15 EAST 24TH STREET, MANHATTAN
Telephone, 4430 Madison Square

Subseription (Yearly) $3.00 Published Monthly

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‘SSWNUd LNONN DNIMOHS ‘HEVLIS GHHSINIANOA NI (ATIOIS) STaWaL ‘VLSaDaS

The

Architectural Rerord

Vol. XXIII

FEBRUARY, 1908.

No. 2.

Greek Architects

Greek architecture is very close to us:
yet Greek architects seem remote and
shadowy, in strong contrast with our
ideas about Greek sculptors. We vividly
associate Phidias with the Parthenon
sculptures, Polyclitus with his well-poised
athletes, Praxiteles, with his “Faun” and
“Hermes,” and to each man we attribute
a distinct style. But how many of us can
say that the Athenian Propylaea evoked
the name, far less the style,of Mnescicles ;
the Parthenon that of Ictinus; the Mau-
soleum of Halicarnassus that of Pythius?
Only a few specialists know that the
authorship of many more of the greatest
works of Greek architecture is an ascer-
tained fact: we know who built such
theatres as those at Syracuse and Epi-
daurus, such temples as those of Samos,
Ephesus, Delphi, Olympia, Delos, Argos,
Phigalea, Tegea, Eleusis, Priene.

These great names should be on the
list of those whom the world delights to
honor. But, you may object, of what use
is it to know their names unless we can
go further and learn something of their
personality and style; how they solved
the architectural problems of their day
and what relation these problems bear to
those of our own day; what their educa-
tion and social condition were; whether
they were interested in theory as well as
practice; whether and how they made
architectural drawings and models; made
estimates and drew up specifications and
contracts; what were their relations to
their clients, public and private, to the
contractors and builders, and to the
workmen. Connected with these are the
less personal questions of building laws,

the methods of construction, the ma-
terials, implements and instruments in
use in Greek lands.

It is by no means impossible to answer
most of these questions, with the help of
Greek literature and inscriptions; and
the lack of any attempt to do it has led
to the present article, which aims at giv-
ing to American architects as intimate a
view as possible of their Greek confreres
both as men and as artists.

THE SEVEN GREAT ARCHITECTS.

The Greeks themselves had a clear
conception of the personality and prom-
inence of their architects. In the Alex-
andrian age—shortly before the Christ-
ian era—when everything famous went
in groups of seven, there were seven
greatest Greek architects in the opinion
of the day, as reported by Varro, as well
as seven wonders of the world. These
seven were selected from all of Greek
history and were: Daedalus, Chersiph-
ron, Ictinus, Menecrates, Philon, Archi-
medes and Dinocrates. Of these we are
familiar with all but one from other his-
toric sources. Daedalus represents the
mythical, oriental stage of the hero-arch-
itect, the primitve Pelasgic style of im-
mense irregular stone masonry with dec-
oration in colored stucco or fresco, as
well as in metal. His supposed master-
piece, the palace of Minos in Crete, so
famous under the name of the Labyrinth,
has now been excavated in all its sumptu-
ousness as the most magnificent proof of
the advanced civilization of the Greeks
before the Trojan war (c. 2000 B.C.).

The second on the list, Chersiphron,

Copyright, 1908, by ‘Tum ARCHITECTURAL RECORD Company.’ All rights reserved.
Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter, Post Office at New York, N. Y., Act of Congress of March 3d, 1879.

82 THE
built (vi. cent. B.C.) the national tem-
ple of the Ionian Greeks, Diana of Ephe-
sus, with contributions from all the Greek
cities of Asia Minor. This is the great-
est if not the earliest example of the
archaic Ionic style, when wood and terra
cotta were being abandoned for stone,
and entirely new canons of proportion
and decoration were invented. His work
was probably epoch-making.

tL Ge
EPHESUS, TEMPLE OF DIANA.

Fourth Century B.C., Design of Paeonius for
carved lower drum of columns.

There is no corresponding architect on
this list to be the standard-bearer of early
Doric, as we see it in Sicily and South
Italy, but the next name is that of Icti-
nus, with his masterpieces, the Parthenon
and the temples of Eleusis and Phigalea.
He typifies the perfection of Attic Doric
and the highest achievements of the next
era, that of Pericles (middle v. cent.).

Of the fourth, Menecrates, we know
nothing, but Philon, fifth on the list, was

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

the leader of the Attic School in the
Praxitelean Age, in both religious and
civil architecture, building the great Ar-
senal, completing the temple of Eleusis
and building its portico. He was the
apostle of the new practical utilitarian-
ism which heralded the union between
architecture and engineering, so charac-
teristic of the last centuries of Greek art.

The sixth architect, Dinocrates, was

EPHESUS, TEMPLE OF DIANA.

Fragments of Sixth Century B. C. Design of
Chersiphron(?) for Carved Lower Drums
of Columns.

the favorite of Alexander the Great, and
the builder of Alexandria. His magnifi-
cent plans for city construction on a level
formed the basis of most succeeding
work on a large scale, such as was shown
in the founding of the great city of An-

tioch under. the. Seleucid. Kings,
seems to have developed the earlier ideas
of Hippodamos in planning a well-bal-
anced and monumental city, with wide
and regular streets, and with public

GREEK "ARCHITECTS. 83

buildings at the right intervals and sites.
Finally, in Archimedes, the seventh,
we have the highest product of the mech-
anical and mathematical genius in archi-
tecture as distinct from the esthetic, a
peculiarity of Greek art just before the
Roman conquest, when engineering be-
came so prominent a factor. The recent
discovery of one of his lost works in
Constantinople is now explaining his
genius to us.

These seven men, therefore, selected
by the Greeks themselves, represent the
main periods and phases of Greek archi-
tecture from the beginning to the age of
Augustus. A number of others might
be added, who were of equal prominence.
Such men were better known and more
highly esteemed than the contemporary
sculptors and painters, if we except a few
men of the decadence, like Zeuxis and
Apelles. This high position is granted to
them clearly for three reasons. The edu-
cation of an architect was necessarily
more thorough and varied than that of a
sculptor or painter, as we shall see. Then,
in the economy of the Greek states, the
architect took an important and neces-
sary part, directing the work of other
artists. And, most important of all, the
sculptors and painters worked with their
own hands and so lost caste, while the
architect, planning, but not doing any
manual labor, stood on a higher social
level. He was a gentleman, practicing a
liberal art: they were mere mercenary
craftsmen.

VITRUVIUS ON AN ARCHITECT'S EDUCA-
TION.

The Greek idea of the science of archi-
tecture and of the knowledge required of
an architect is best given by Vitruvius in
his Handbook of Architecture, written
early in the reign of Augustus, but large-
ly copied from earlier Greek authors,
both in ideas and material.

“Architecture,” he says, “is a science
compounded of a variety of disciplinary
studies and many kinds of information,
by means of which all the works of art
produced by the other arts can be judged.
It is acquired by practice and theory.
oe. Lie architects who. have: tried
to reach perfection merely by the work

of their hands without the aid of letters,
have been unable to obtain recognition
for their work; and on the other hand
those who have relied entirely on liter-
ary discussions and labors have had the
reputation of pursuing a shadow rather
than the reality. No one should
therefore pretend to be an architect who
has not made himself proficient in both
theory and practice. He should
have literary attainments in order to aid
his memory by copious notes. He should
be a skillful draughtsman, so that he may
portray graphically the work to be exe-
cuted: versed in geometry, which is so
great a help to architecture, for example
in teaching the use of the circle, level and
square, and in expressing the norms and
directions of lines; also acquainted with
optics, so as to obtain proper effects of
light in different sides of his buildings;
a good arithmetician, so as to calculate
exactly the cost of buildings, work out
the ratios of measurements and difficult
questions of symmetry by the methods of
geometry. He must also be acquainted
with history, in order to be able to give
a satisfactory explanation, for instance,
of the decorative work so often used in
buildings. A tincture of philoso-
phic study is necessary to keep him from
meanness or covetousness, and to give
him a love of good faithful work, dignity
of bearing and a care for his good fame.
He must have studied physics on account
of the numerous questions he is called
upon to decide, for example, in connec-
tion with aqueducts.. Musical knowledge
is necessary as in the case of the
acoustics of theatres, where bronze vases
must be placed under the seats according
to certain mathematical rules, so as to
concentrate and give out musical sounds
according to harmonic law. . Medi-
cine will teach the peculiarities of the
different climates, the healthy or un-
healthy qualities of air and location, and
the use of water. A good acquaintance
with Jaw is necessary to decide questions
of party-walls, roof-outline, sewage,
lighting and drainage and all other ques-
tions that must be settled by the architect
before beginning a building, lest after the
work is done, he leave food for law-
suits to the owner and lest he be a prey

84 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

to lawyers, lessees or contractors... .
Even astrology is useful for a knowledge
of the points of the compass .. . of equi-
nox and solstice and astral movements.”

Such a variety of requirements, Vitru-
vius adds, while it involves a broad, lib-
eral education before one can begin to
specialize, implies a knowledge merely of
the principles of these branches except
in their application to architecture. “An
architect,” he says, “must have the
theory of all these branches; the practice
only of his own.”

PROFESSIONAL AND SOCIAL STANDING.

This picture may seem overdrawn and
an unrealizable ideal, but Greek sources
supply evidence to show that it is fairly
representative of the profession at its
best. In fact, Vitruvius in his late day
has lost sight of many characteristics of
the finer training of the Greek golden
age, in the sciences of perspective, optics
and proportions. An architect of this

type can hardly have been a common pro-
duct, but one of the fine flowers of Greek
culture. Plato himself mentions the pro-

fession as open to the citizens of his
ideal state to whom he forbids the occu-
pations of the artisan and the tradesman.
To express in dollars and cents the dif-
ferent value set upon his services as com-
pared to those of the artisan there comes
a Platonic dialogue, which contrasts the
value of masons, who were worth only
five or six mines (= 500 or 600 drachmas
— c, $100 to $120), with that of archi-
tects, who, as slaves, were worth about
twenty times as much (10,000 drachmas
= c. $2,000), “for,” he adds, “architects
are scarce throughout Greece.” On the
other hand, the accounts of certain na-
tional sanctuaries show that architects
sometimes received hardly more than day
laborers, and that for these men of minor
importance there was a sliding scale of
wages varing from two to four drach-
mas per day (c. 40 to 80 cents), for
long engagements.

There were, in fact, many sorts. Some
practiced independently and were either
themselves always on the move, or sent
about drawings,models and specifications.
Others occupied salaried positions and
belonged to the class of officials. They

were either permanently attached to
great sanctuaries, such as Delphi, Olym-
pia or Eleusis, where there was nearly al-
ways something to be done in the way of
construction or repair; or they received
special appointment as supervising arch-
itects for a given job, such as the build-
ing of a theatre, temple or harbor. Final-
ly there were the slaves, in the service
of the state or of wealthy individuals,
who often hired them out.

Quite naturally the independent archi-
tects had the higher position and emolu-
ments. The superintending architects at
Athens were paid as little as $6.50 per
prytany, doubtless because the work took
only part of their time. On the other
hand a very honorable position was that
of city architect, quite common in the
period just before and after Alexander,
when a single architect or sometimes
three were given complete charge of the
repairs and new structures throughout
the city.

Another point. “It is extremely prob-
able,” says a French writer, “that the
Greek cities, when preparing for any-
thing so important,—religiously, politi-
cally, and commercially,—as the founda-
tion of their colonies, added a number
of architects to the secular and religious
leaders of the expedition.” Plato’s de-
scription of his ideal city in twelve quar-
ters (as at Thurium) and with carefully
located public buildings, makes this al-
most certain. The three cities laid out
by Hippodamus, the planning of Alex-
andria by Dinocrates, of Priene by Py-
thius, and of Antioch by Xenaeus—all
but the first during the age of Alexander
—are instances of the power given to a
single architect. Earlier still we hear
of a group of architects called from Paes-
tum in Campania, where they had pre-
sumably been building one or more of the
temples we still admire, to build the city
of Velia, which was made one of the most
beautiful Greek cities of South Italy.

Strabo in his travels attributed the
order and beauty of public buildings in
certain cities to the administration of all
such matters by city architects. Speak-
ing of Rhodes, he says: “As at Massalia
and Cyzicus, so here particularly every-
thing relating to architects . is ad-

GREEK ARCHIPECTS. 85

ministered with extreme care.” Of Cyzi-
cus, he says: ‘““There are three architects
to whom is entrusted the care of the
public edifices and engines.”

Perhaps an anecdote about Dinocrates
will illustrate the high position often
reached. This architect set out from
Macedonia to join Alexander’s army,
hoping to gain the royal favor. He came
provided with letters of introduction to
men of rank about the King’s person,
but, though they received him kindly, and
made him many promises, they put off
presenting him to the King until, tired
of waiting, Dinocrates took the matter
into his own hands. He was tall, of
agreeable countenance and dignified ap-
pearance. Relying on these natural ad-

statue in his left hand, and in his right a
huge vase, into which shall be collected
all the streams of the mountain, which
will thence pour into the sea.” Alexan-
der’s fancy was tickled at the picture, and
though the wild scheme was never at-
tempted, it accomplished its purpose, for
Alexander kept Dinocrates, made him his
favorite architect and decorator until the
time of his death, giving him the general
direction of the planning and building of
Alexandria, by which future architecture
was so strongly influenced.

TRAINING.

How did the Greek architect obtain his
education? We will suppose that he has
had what corresponds to the undergrad-

MILETUS, CAPITAL OF TEMPLE OF APOLLO: DESIGN OF PAEONIUS.

vantages he put off his ordinary cloth-
ing, anointed himself with oil, crowned
himself with a poplar wreath, slung a
lion’s skin over his left shoulder, and
carrying a heavy club, sallied forth to
the royal tribunal at an hour when he
knew Alexander was dispensing justice.
His sensational appearance as a Her-
cules drew such a crowd that Alex-
ander’s attention was attracted and he
ordered the ‘‘freak” to be brought before
him.

“Who are you,” he inquired.

“A Macedonian architect,’ replied
Dinocrates, “ready to suggest schemes
and designs worthy of your royal re-
nown. I propose to shape Mt. Athos into
a statue of a man holding a spacious

uate course in our colleges and has mas-
tered what Vitruvius calls the principles
of the subjects required for preparatory
work, which was, substantially, the edu-
cation of a typical young Greek gentle-
man of the intellectual type. At the same
time it often happened that the profes-
sion was selected for him and that he
began specializing at a much earlier age.
Plato in his Laws (BK. 1) recommends
a sort of kindergarten method to fathers
who intend their boys to become archi-
tects, advising that they be supplied with
miniature tools and set-to building chil-
dren’s houses. There are numerous cases
of boys educated by their fathers in the
same profession.

There appear not to have been any

86 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

public art schools or academies, where
the various branches were taught simul-
taneously: nor were there any publicly-
salaried teachers. The technical teaching
was neither collective nor public. The
student frequented famous independent
teachers who were at the head of large
ateliers or offices, or had private courses:
studied physics with a Democritus, per-
spective with an Anaxagoras, proportions
with a Nexaris, mechanics with an Arch-
imedes. Theodorus of Samos, when he
was called to Sparta to build the temple

ARCHITECTURAL LITERATURE AND CITY
PLANS.

Evidently a library was part of the
preliminary equipment, for Socrates says,
in one of the dialogues: “In what em-
ployment do you intend to excel, O Eu-
thedemus, that you collect so many
books? Is it architecture? For this art
you will find no little knowledge neces-
sary!’ Sometimes the literary and theo-
retical element was developed to excess.
A striking example of this was Hippoda-
mus of Miletus, who lived at Athens in

MILETUS, BASE OF COLUMN OF TEMPLE OF APOLLO: DESIGN OF PAEONIUS.

of Athens, as early as the VI. cent. B.C.,
opened a school of architecture in Sparta.
The custom of famous architects to em-
body in monographs or text-books their
special theories and information, and the
illustration of their masterpieces, assist-
ed in the work of teaching. The system
of apprenticeship was common in the
architectural as well as in the other trades
and arts among the Greeks. But it never
took the form of organized labor. ‘There
were no guilds or unions with the three
classes of masters, journeymen and ap-
prentices that became the rule since Ro-
man times.

the brilliant period of the fifth century.
He was an influential sophist and littera-
teur, famous for his purely disinterested

labors in city affairs. Apparently dis-
gusted by the irregular and squalid
streets of Athens and other Greek cities
as contrasted with the superb publicstruc-
tures that had been rising under Pericles
and his contemporaries, like oases in
slums, he conceived a scheme for laying
out cities throughout Hellas, a scheme
which was, for its day, quite comparable
to Nero’s for the reconstruction of Rome,
Baron Haussmann’s for that of Paris, or
the present piano regolatore for Rome,

GREEK ARCHITECTS. 87

though it could not fully be carried out
except in newly-founded cities. A free
hand was given him to lay out the Pira-
eus, where some of his scheme has come
to light, and his reputation throughout
Greek lands became such that he was
asked to draw up the plans for the new
cities of Rhodes and Thurium.

Regularity of plan, with streets diverg-
ing from the market-place; a division
into twelve quarters, with geometric ac-
curacy, and at the same time a due re-
gard for orientations and the breaking
of prevalent winds by street angles, were
some of the characteristics of Hippoda-
mus’ scheme, and of its imitations in
later Greek times. While suited to level
sites it was a comparative failure when
applied to those built, like Priene, in
Asia Minor, on steep mountain slopes,
or about a hill, for it made little allow-
ance for natural configuration and re-
quired elaborate terraces and cuts. It
was the architecture of the pedant. Evi-
dently the popularity of Hippodamus was
enormously increased by literary propa-
ganda and he probably required the as-
sistance of a large office force of prac-
tical architects.

In the next century, also at Athens,
we find a brilliant and far better-balanced
union of literary and artistic talent, in
Philon of Eleusis, an accomplished ora-
tor and writer, but, unlike Hippodamus,
primarily a practical architect and engi-
neer. His fame rests on the construction
of the great arsenal at the Piraeus and of
the colonnade of the sanctuary at Eleusis.
Valerius Maximus says of him: “Athens
is proud of its arsenal and well it may
be, for it is admirable. Philon, its archi-
tect, gave an account of his work in full
theatre, and the most cultured audience
in the world applauded him as much for
his eloquence as for his architectural
genius.”

All trace of this arsenal was supposed
to be lost, but the original specifications
by Philon have recently been recovered,
drawn up with amazingly minute atten-
tion to detail.

ARCHITECTS’ MONOGRAPHS.
Such monographs as this address by
Philon, referred to by Valerius Maximus,
were commonly written and circulated by

prominent architects whenever they pro-
duced a work in which their architectural
ideas were consummately embodied. At
a very early date (VI. cent.) Theodorus
of Samos wrote on the famous temple
of Hera at Samos, the rival of the tem-
ple of Ephesus, which he had built with
Rhoecus ; and Chersiphron wrote, in col-
laboration with his son, Metagenes, a
treatise on their temple of Diana at Eph-
esus. The influence of these, the two
greatest temples of their day, must have
been immeasurably increased by these
monographs.

Although not one of them has been
preserved, it is evident from hints and
extracts that these descriptions had both
a theoretical and a practical part. The
architect explained the theories and
norms which he has sought to embody,
as well as any peculiarities or novelties of
execution. Chersiphron, for example, de-
tailed his new mechanical devices for
transporting heavy columns and epistyle
blocks from the quarry to the works, and
his method for hoisting them into posi-
tion. As this architect was one of the
leaders in the movement to substitute
stone for wood and terra cotta in temple
construction, he was evidently obliged to
face some of the problems that had arisen
in consequence, assisted, possibly, by
knowledge of Egyptian methods.

LITERARY AESTHETIC POLEMICS.

Later architects, especially those of
the fourth century B. C., living at a time
when practical difficulties had been al-
ready long since overcome, laid more
stress in their writings upon norms of
proportion, novelties of plan, discussions
of style, and questions of refinement con-
nected with the mathematico-optical
studies that played so important a role
in developed Greek architecture since
early in the fifth century. Schools and
parties developed and discussion ran
high. War raged between the Doric and
the Ionic camps. Philon and Silenus de-
fended Doric against the increasing Ionic
inroads. Argelius, Pythius and Hermo-
genes, prominent Ionic partisans, at-
tempted to prove that the Doric order
was totally unsuited to temple architec-
CULE.

Meanwhile, and

less controversial

88 THE ARCHITECTURAL: RECORD,

more descriptive monographs had been
quite frequent. Ictinus, with the co-
operation of Carpio, had described the
Parthenon, and this should be sufficient
to silence those who would attribute any
of its architectural beauties to Phidias.
Pythius, who built in the Alexandrian
age the mausoleum of Halicarnassus and
the city of Priene, wrote on both sub-
jects. In his monograph on the temple
of Athens at Priene, the most exquisite
Ionic temple after the Erechtheion, he
probably gave his reasons for omitting
the frieze both here and in the other Pri-
enian temples, an omission so puzzling
to the modern architects who have stud-
ied the magnificent ruins of Priene.

In the same way most important nov-
elties appear to have been ventilated in
literary form either by their inventors
or their pupils. For instance, Argelius
wrote on the new Corinthian order, so
finely embodied in the temple of Athena
Alea at Tegea, by Scopas. Hermogenes,
a great architectural reformer shortly
before Alexander, supported in his writ-
ings his two most important innovations,
namely: (1) the pseudo-dipteral arrange-
ment of temples, by which he secured
more space around the cella, and, (2)
the eustyle proportions in which the in-
ter-columniations were 2% diameters in
place of the too-close systyle (2 diam.)
or the too-wide diastyle (3 diam.) types.

This statement of Vitruvius has been
verified by the German excavations at
the temple of Artemis at Magnesia on
the Maeander built by Hermogenes. It
was actually found to be a pseudo-dip-
teros, and a refinement unnoted by Vitru-
vius was that the two central columns on
each fagade were spaced wider than the
Fest.

TRAVEL.

The importance of this ability of
Greek architects to express their ideas
in literary form can hardly be exagge-
rated and is probably responsible for the
rapid and wide spread of certain general
ideas and forms, through the multiplica-
tion of manuscripts and drawings and the
enthusiasm of pupils returning to differ-
ent parts of the Hellenic world from the
school of the master. One result was

the frequent calling of these master
architects to distant regions. Nothing is
more striking than the broad geographi-
cal radius covered by some of them. In
the sixth century B. C. the island of Sa-
mos supplied architects not only to King
Croesus of Lydia, then at the head of an
empire in Asia Minor, but also to the
other great Oriental power, Persia, as
well as to the Ionian cities and to Greece
proper. Its leading artists at that time
were Rhoecus, Theodorus and Man-
drocles.

This Theodorus, for instance, was
called to Sparta to build the Hall of
Public Assembly and to open a school of
architecture. There was an interchange,
for Eupalinus, the best engineer of his
day, was called from Megara to Samos
to build the earliest known canal-aque-
duct, so much admired by Herodotus.
The islands at this time were still the
teachers of the mainland. For example,
Chersiphron went from Crete to Ephesus
to build the temple of Diana, and Byzes
from Naxos to Delphi to help build the
temple of Apollo. This constant flow
between Asia Minor, the islands, and
Greece proper continued in the following
period. A wholesale migration was that
of 220 B. C., when King Ptolemy Philo-
pator sent a hundred architects and
sculptors to rebuild the city of Rhodes,
which had been partly destroyed by an
earthquake.

ARTISTIC VERSATILITY.

There is no doubt that, especially be-
fore the fourth century, these leading
architects were responsible not only for
the construction but in great part also for
the selection and arrangement of the in-
ternal and external decoration of a build-
ing, whether painted or carved. Modern
writers have often doubted that Ictinus
had any share in determining the decora-
tive scheme of the Parthenon. But Vit-
ruvius cites the Caryatidae of the Erech-
theion as examples of such decoration,
the meaning and origin of which the
architect must be able to explain.

There were fairly numerous cases, in
fact, where the architect did not merely
plan the temple sculptures, but seems to
have designed them. Polyclitus, who

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THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

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GREEK ARCHITECTS: OI

built the most perfect of theatres at Epi-
daurus, and Scopas, author of the most
symmetrical temple in the Pelopennesus,
that of Athena Alea at Tegea, were even
more famous as sculptors than as archi-
tects. Many others practiced both arts:
Theodorus of Samos, Bupalos of Chios,
Gitiadas of Sparta, and Callimachus, the
supposed inventor of the Corinthian cap-
ital. When the versatility of the artists
of the Middle Ages and the Early Ren-
aissance is remembered, there is nothing
remarkable in this many-sidedness of the
Greeks.

CITY ARCHITECTS AND CONTRACTORS.

The next question to be answered is,
how did architects, so educated and with
this public position, go about to do their
work? How were they engaged and
paid? Under what conditions did they
work?

The first important point is that there
was no hard and fast line drawn between
architects, contractors and builders. The
term “‘architect,’ which in Greek means
literally chief artisan, head artist, was
elastic, and made to include whoever
had general charge of the work of dif-
terent kinds on a building, whether he
drew up his own plans, or superintended
the carrying out of another artist’s plans.
it is probable that the young architect
was usually satisfied with the position of
clerk of the works, under the chief archi-
tect, or of contractor and builder of some
section of a structure, for it was seldom
that the work was given out to a single
contractor,

Of course, when there were several
contractors it would be impossible to at-
tribute the design to any of them. And
as this is true in most cases it follows
that the architect who designed a great
building in Greece was hardly ever also
the contractor for it. This kept the dig-
nity of the profession higher.

Conditions varied so radically in differ-
ent parts of the Greek world, and at dif-
ferent periods, that no general statement
would apply. I can only give examples
of the different methods.

The states where the architect was
given the greatest freedom as well as the

heaviest responsibility were the cities of
Asia Minor and elsewhere, in which, as
I have already said, the care of building
was placed entirely in charge of one or
more city architects. What this involved
and how it was sometimes regulated is
shown by what Vitruvius calls an ancient
law of the city of Ephesus, “that when
an architect was charged with the erec-
tion of a public building he was asked
to calculate the cost, and having handed
in his estimate to the magistrate, his
property was held as security until the
work was completed. Then, if the cost
tallied with the estimate, the architect was
recompensed by public decrees and hon-
ors. If, however, the cost exceeded the
estimates by not over 25 per cent., this
amount was taken from the public funds,
without imposing any penalty on the
architect (neither was there any expres-
sion of public gratitude). But if the ex-
cess of expenditure should be over 25
per cent. that amount was taken from the
architect’s own property.” “Would to
God,” says Vitruvius, “that we Romans
had such a law!”

The sums involved in such public
works were often considerable, notwith-
standing the low price of labor and the
fact that the materials were supplied free
by the state. The cost of the Propylaea
at Athens was set at 2,012 talents, or
about $2,500,000, and it was completed in
five years, according to Heliodorus. The
handling of this money was not left to
the architect in charge, but usually to a
finance “commutes. “In “the cace. ‘of. a
building of moderate cost and plain style,
like the Arsenal of the Piraeus, the cost
was surprisingly small, only about $12,-
ooo being set aside for it each year on
the city budget, over a period of less than
fifteen years.

METHODS OF PAYMENT AND WORK.

The Greeks had three methods in the
erection of buildings: (1) contract work;
(2) piece work, and (3) day labor:; It
is not always possible to distinguish be-
tween the first and the second of these
methods because contracts were often so
sub-divided as to come under the cate-
gory of piece-work.

92 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

In work done by day-labor, each work-
man received his orders and his pay di-
rectly from the state or corporation.
This was the favorite early method, dur-
ing the sixth and fifth centuries, for
buildings that required careful and art-
istic execution, for in this case individual
workmen could be carefully selected and
made responsible for the perfection of
their work.

Contract work, which was first intro-
duced for the commoner grade of con-
struction, such as city walls, invaded the

PUBLIC CONTRACTS.

We know nothing of private contracts
and of the relations of architects to pri-
vate clients, because such contracts were
drawn up on destructible materials and
have not survived; probably some will
come to light among Egyptian papyri,
which have already given several of Ro-
man date. But all public contracts after
having been so drafted and signed were
inscribed on slabs and set up in a public
place; and a number of these have been
recovered, giving every detail of this

EPIDAUROS, CAPITAL OF THE THOLOS, BY POLYCLITUS.

higher spheres of architecture during the
fourth century, in ever increasing pro-
portions, but even to the end it did not
entirely drive out the earlier method.
So far as we know contractors did not
intervene in the building of the Parthe-
non, and all payments were made di-

rectly to individual artisans. It was the
same at the Erechtheion except for the
encaustic work, which was done by spe-
cial contract. Later, in the fourth cen-
tury B. C., about two-thirds of the work
was by piece-work or day-labor and one-
third by contract.

part of Greek public law. This permanent
and public form was necessary owing to
the strict accounting required of the of-
ficial put in charge of such work by the
people and the danger of accusation of
fraud in handling the public money. The
trial of sPeéricles: for purloining some of
the gold supplied for the ivory and gold
statue of Athena is merely one of the
indications of this need of public knowl-
edge of all the details of such transact-
ions. By the side of these inscribed
contracts was always a second series of
inscribed documents, namely the detail-

GREEK ARCHITECTS. 93

ed itemized accounts, year by year, of the
finance committee, which included the
above building expenses.

Building contracts in their complete
form usually consisted of four sections:
(1) the popular decree or fiat ordering
the work; (2) the specifications; (3) the
legal clauses that were to govern the
work; (4) the text of the contract to be
signed. I shall take up each of these
four sections in turn and interweave the
story of the various stages preceding the
actual commencement of work. After
that I shall describe the operation of
building in its various phases.

BuiLpDING DECREE AND FINANCE CoM-
MITTEE.—First, as to the decision to
build. In democratic states, such as
Athens, Phocis and Locris, this was done
by direct decree of the whole people; in
democratic or aristocratic states, such as
Sparta, by order of the magistrates; in
tyrannies by the oligarth; in the case of
the large national sanctuaries, such as
Olympia and Delphi, by their governing
corporations,—for example, by the Am-
phictyonic Council at Delphi.

We are, of course, more familiar with
the method by popular decree, as here
the details were made a matter of public
record. When the decree was passed,
appropriating the funds and ordering the
work, it included a clause appointing a
committee of superintendence, whose
members are diversely called epistates,
naopoioi or epimeletai. This Committee
to be renewable each year and responsi-
ble directly to the people for the financ-
ing of the enterprise. An architect was
also chosen by popular vote either as a
member or an adjunct of this committee
to be responsible to it and to the people
for the technical perfection of the build-
ing.

The committee and its architect, fol-
lowing the instructions of the decree,
now drew up the specifications, form of
contract and estimate of cost. This docu-
ment was submitted to the popular as-
sembly and voted, as a supplement to the
previous decree, and was then made pub-
lic, both by placards on the public monu-
ments of the city itself and of other
cities and by the announcement of her-
alds in the market place. A date is named

for the handing in of bids, which must
be made in person.

CoMPETITIVE Bippinc.—There was no
attempt made to limit the bidding to
local contractors. In fact every induce-
ment was offered that might attract the
competition of foreigners; except at
Athens, where only natives were allow-
ed to compete. Foreign contractors were
given special privileges: their traveling
expenses were sometimes paid; they were
allowed to sue the adjudicator of bids
for fraudulent decisions; they were ex-
empted from all taxes and from the right
of seizure for debt.

ASSIGNING ContRAcT.—The bidding
took place in the presence of the local
magistrates and of the committee in
charge; and the whole work, or each sec-
tion of it that was put up separately, was
awarded to the lowest bidder, taking into
account not merely pecuniary, but other
considerations, such as the period of time
set for the completion, or offers to take
a lease of the building for a term of
years in lieu of cash payment.

Precautions were taken to guard the
interests of the state, especially against
the pooling of contractors’ interests or
attempts at monopoly. Contractors were
often not allowed to have partners, or at
most a single partner. In other cases no
contractor was allowed to undertake more
than one job.

WERE CONTRACTORS ARCHITECTS ?—
The status of the contractors must now
be understood. Were they usually quali-
fied architects or not, as well as builders?
There appears to have been no absolute
rule. Although, as we shall see, build-
ing contracts were sometimes assumed by
amateurs, either as a form of generosity
to the public or as a speculation, the
great majority of contractors seem to
have been architects of minor repute as
well as practical builders. Some should
even be classified among the best archi-
tects, as was Callicrates, who contracted
for the building of the entire Long Wall
of Athens; as was also Ictinus’s practical
partner in the construction of the Par-
thenon.

In the later rebuilding of the Athen-
ian walls, when as many as ten differ-
ent contractors are put on the job, they

are called ‘architects’ in the original
specifications. Sometimes when two or
more men are associated in a contract it
is possible that, as in the present day, the

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

It is well known that Philon alone was
responsible for the plan and received all
the credit, and yet the inscription giving
the contract begins: ‘Specifications for

HALF SECTION ON
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HALICARNASSUS, MAUSOLEUM, DESIGNED BY PYTHIUS AND SATYROS (IV. CENT. B. C.)
(Restoration by Oldfield, Archaeologia, LIV.)

business end is attended to by one, the
artistic end by the other. This seems to
have been the case with the famous Ar-
senal at the Piraeus, already referred to.

the Stone Arsenal for marine stores of
Euthydomos, son of Demetrius of Me-
lite, and Philon, son of Exekestes “of
Eleusis.” This Euthydomos was either

GREEK ARCHITECTS.

the business contractor or a moneyed as-
sociate.

SPECIFICATIONS, THE PIRAEUS ARSE-
NAL.—The next point to consider is the
specifications. A model of its kind is that
of the Piraeus Arsenal. I shall give a
translation of part of it,

“An Arsenal shall be built in Zeia for

height, the whole being dressed by the
level. The foundations shall be extended
so as to support the columns, to a dis-
tance of 15 ft. from the walls. There shall
be 35 columns in each row, which shall
be arranged so as to leave a passage for
people through the centre of the Arsenal.
The width of this (aisle) between the

ARSENAL OF PHILO

naval tackle, beginning near the Propy-
laeum, which leads from the market
place. The length shall be four plethra
(400 ft.). the breadth 50 ft. or 55 ft., in-
cluding the walls. The ground of the
site shall be cut down 3 ft. where it is
highest and levelled off in the other
parts. On this area the course masonry
of the foundations shall be laid to an even

AT THE PIRAEUS (PORT OF ATHENS).
(Restored from Philo’s specifications (IV. Cent. B.C.) by DOrpfeld (Athen Mittheil.

VIII.)

(two rows of) columns shall be 20 ft.
The thickness of the foundation shall
be 21 ft., and the stones shall be laid in
headers and stretchers. The walls and
columns shall be of stone of Akte (1. e.,
Pirzeus limestone). A directing-course
shall be laid for the walls 3 ft. broad
and 114 thick, each stone of which shall
be 4 ft. long, except the corner stones,

96 THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

which shall measure 434 ft. Over the
centre of this directing-course shall be
laid an upright course of blocks 4 ft.
long, 214 ft. and one digit wide and 3
ft. high. The length of the corner blocks
shall correspond with the measure of
the triglyphs.

“Two doorways shall be left open, at
either end of the Arsenal, each 9 ft. wide.
Each shall be divided in the centre by a
pier 2 ft. wide and 10 ft. deep, and the
door jambs shall be carried back as far
as the first columns.

“Above the upright course, (1. é., the
base) the walls shall be built of blocks
4 ft. long and 2% ft. thick. The corner
blocks shall correspond with the propor-
tions of the triglyphs, and the height of
the blocks shall be 7% ft.

“The height of the walls above the up-
right course shall be 27 ft., including the
triglyph (—frieze) under the cornice.
The height of the doorways shall be 15%
ft. The lintels shall be of Pentelic mar-
ble, 12 ft. long, two courses in height
and of the same thickness as the walls.
The doorposts shall be of Pentelic or

Hymettic marble, and the sills of Hy-

mettic marble. Over the lintels there
shall be a cornice projecting 114 ft.

“There shall be windows all around,
in every wall, opposite each intercolumni-
ation, and at each end three. They shall
be 3 fit. high and 2 ft. wide. Each win-
dow shall have a close-fitting bronze
shutter.

“Upon the wall there shall be a cor-
nice ail around, and (at each end) a
pediment surmounted by a pediment-cor-
nice.

“The columns shall be set upon a stylo-
bate on the same level as the directing
course (of the walls). The thickness
of this stylobate shall be 11% ft., its width
3 ft., and the length of each block 4 ft.
The lower diameter of each column shall
be 234 ft., and their height, including
capitals, 30 ft. Each column shall have
seven drums, 4 ft. high, except the low-
est, which shall measure 5 ft. The capi-
tals of the columns shall be of Pentelic
marble. The epistyle shall be of wood,
and shall be fastened upon the columns.
It shall be 2% ft. wide and not more
than 2% ft. high, and the number of

epistyle beams on either side shall be
eighteen. Cross beams shall be placed
upon the columns across the middle pas-
sage, of the same thickness and height.
Rafters shall be set up 134 ft. broad and
14 ft. and two digits high. of cs ue
der each a kingpost 3 ft. long and 1% ft.
thick shall rest on the cross-beams, to
which the rafters shall be braced by ties.

“Upon (the rafters) shall be placed
long timbers 10 digits thick, 3 palms and
3 digits wide and 1% ft. apart. Upon
these shall be placed (cross-wise) cov-
ering planks a half ft. wide, 2 digits
thick and 4 digits apart. Upon these
(planks) shall be placed strips (to sup-
port the tiles) 1 digit thick and 6 wide,
which shall be fastened with iron nails.

“This (roof frame) shall be covered
with a (preservative) coat and shall then
be tiled with Corinthian tiles fitted close-
ly together.

“That there may be ventilation in the
Arsenal, when the courses of the walls
are laid (spaces) shall be left open at
the joints of the blocks wherever the ar-
chitect shall direct.

“All these things shall be carried out
by the contractors in accordance with
the specifications, following out the
measurements and the models which the
architect shall provide; and they shall
deliver each detail of the work within
the time to which they shall have agreed
in the contract.”

The units of measurement here men-
tioned are 4 digits = 1 palm; 4 palms =
1 foot; rfoot == 0,308 met. These epe-
cifications do not mention the decorations
or details of capitals, cornices, frieze,
etc., nor the number and dimensions of
the triglyphs, which we know, from the
inventories, to have been painted. This
part of the work was probably covered
by another and later specification differ-
ent from the constructor’s specification,
and possibly this part of the work was
done not by contract at all, but by day’s
work, as at the Erechtheion, under the
architect’s daily direction. As we shall
see, all details, whether in relief or in
color, were executed in situ after the
construction was completed, in all Greek
structures.

A. L. Frothingham.

(To be continued. )

BIRD’S HYE VIEW OF BROOKLYN PLAZA AS PROJECTED.
Raymond F. Almirall,

3 cach emma Vein cum cca

Architect.

The Brooklyn Plaza and the Projected
Brooklyn Central Library

THE PLAZA,

The dedication of the recently com-
pleted portion of the Brooklyn Institute
of Arts and Sciences calls attention to
a section of Greater New York which
holds promise of being one of the most
impressive and important points of the
metropolis. It must be recalled that in
the fall of 1895, under the administration
of Charles A. Schieren, then Mayor of
the City of Brooklyn, ground was
broken for the Institute, and that on
December 14 of the same year the
Mayor laid its cornerstone. Now, after
a lapse of more than a decade, another
section of the extensive design of
Messrs. McKim, Mead & White has
been completed, largely through the
public spirit and interest of the citizens
of Brooklyn, for the city has contributed
generously of its money for the realiza-
tion of the project. The Brooklyn In-
stitute occupies a prominent position on
the Eastern Parkway, one of the city’s
finest thoroughfares, near its intersection
with the Plaza marking the entrance to
Prospect Park, which has recently re-

ceived some noteworthy architectural
embellishments under the programme of
the--Park -Department:- -The: -Basteen
Parkway is, in fact, the most important
thoroughfare in the Prospect Park re-
gion, and leads to the Plaza at opposite
sides of the Memorial Arch. The re-
cent acquisition by the city of a site for
the new Central Library on the Plaza,
between the Parkway and Flatbush
avenue, extending back to the continua-
tion of Underhill avenue between these
thoroughfares, has suggested to Mr. Ray-
mond F. Almirall, who was selected to
submit a design for this building, the
larger problem of the appropriate archi-
tectural treatment of the whole Plaza
to make of it a monumental area, and
to provide for placing on its perimeter
buildings which will permanently assure
its character.

The architect has, accordingly, pro-
vided for such a project, the drawings
which we illustrate herewith. It would
be interesting, for purposes of compari-
son, to have before one a bird’s-eye view
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SHOWING SUGGESTED IMPROVEMENTS.

PLAN OF BROOKLYN PLAZA,

Brooklyn, New York C

Almirall, Architect.

Raymond F.

ty.

Tae BROOKLYN: PLAZA

lyn Plaza; but perhaps such a view
would be a discouragement as well as
a help, for, while it would reveal possi-
bilities of improvement, it would also
show how this centre of exceptional

ve a ee iy

V8 Ver OEE Pe Nae ak

AND CENTRAL

LIBRARY. 99

improvement than actually exist; but to
the citizen who is merely a passerby, the
possibilities would appear largely as lost
opportunities, and would, in conse-
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PLAN OF THE PLACE DE L’ETOILE, PARIS.

natural beauty has been neglected and
slighted, and that in its immediate vicin-
ity may be found the most inappropriate
architectural environment. To a student
of civic aesthetics, the surroundings
would present no greater obstacles to

the undertaking. While the chances
are large for improving the Plaza from
a practical, as well as from an artistic
point of view, we are compelled to
make our admissions by saying that cer-
tain fundamental difficulties or infelici-

100

ties are involved in the problem. Chief
among these is the position of the arch,
which presents the extraordinary spec-
tacle of serving as the monumental en-
trance to Prospect Park, without being
such, either in practice or in appearance.
If it is contended that the arch is not
artistically intended as the entrance to
the Park, its position is equally awk-
ward. Its orientation placing it almost
on the axis of the Park drive presup-
poses that it leads from something be-
fore the Park. Such would seem the
logical reason for choosing for a war-
rior’s monument the arch as more suited

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

the arch is the whole thing, proclaim-
ing its colossal proportions in contrast
to the low extensive mansions disposed
around the circumference of its circle.
In the Brooklyn Plaza the arch will be
of secondary importance, being ex-
ceeded in scale by the projected library
mentioned above, and by its suggested
counterpart—the Zoological Museum.
Besides the buildings which would, in
the event of improvement, be erected on
the remainder of the curve would more
than likely further detract, by their size,
from the arch’s importance. Thus in
time its discordant effect would become

NEARER PERSPECTIVE VIEW FROM THE FLATBUSH AVENUE SIDE, SHOWING THE
EFFECT OF THE BUILDING WHEN THE DOME IS INVISIBLE.

to express its purpose than a column or

an obelisk. But mo street or avenue
extends through the arch; on the con-
trary, the vista is closed at present, and
must remain so in any modifications of
topography that could readily be made.
Clearly, the arch is an impediment to
the harmonious architectural treatment
of the Plaza. It must be accepted and
made the most of by decreasing its im-
portance. It must be acknowledged,
therefore, that the Plaza possesses no
artistic centre, and can never hope to
be as effective, for instance, as the
Place de l’Etoile in Paris, which has
such a centre and of which we repro-
duce a drawing. There is, however,
another fundamental difference between
these two plazas. In the Paris place

less and less as its relative importance
decreases.

Another fundamental difficulty with
the Brooklyn Plaza, both in its present
state and as Mr. Almirall remodels it,
is the lack of very ample means of car-
ing for the large traffic that must ulti-
mately centre at this point. The road
which winds around the curve of the
Plaza is very little wider (except in
front of the arch) than some of the
avenues which run into it. Most of the
area of the Plaza is given up to pedes-
trian ways and architectural embellish-
ments in connection with the central
feature—the electric fountain. No doubt
this arrangement provides a very at-
tractive feature for the public, but in
view of the proximity of Prospect Park

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THE BROOKLYN PLAZA AND CENTRAL LIBRARY.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

el oe poe Seo
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VIEW OF THE GREAT ENTRANCE VESTIBULE ON THE FIRST FLOOR, LOOKING
TOWARDS THE GRAND STAIRCASE. BROOKLYN CENTRAL LIBRARY.

Brooklyn, New York City. Raymond F. Almirall, Architect.

THE (BROOKLYN PLAZA < AND. CHNTRAL LIBRARY,

it would seem unwise if it interferes
at all with the proper handling of the
traffic, to provide for which should be
a leading consideration. The reader
should note how the traffic problem has
been solved in the Place de 1l’Etoile, re-
ferred to above. The roadway of the
place has been made considerably wider
than any of the avenues which intersect
it, and the area in the centre has been
reduced. until it is only: .just~ larce
enough to be a sufficient aesthetic base
for the arch itself. The remainder of
the area has been disposed around the
outside of the roadway, so that great

103

account it would seem a questionable
act to close to vehicular traffic the direct
entrance between the arch and the Park,
as shown in Mr. Almirall’s plan. Car-
riages from and to the Park would have
either to make their way in a round-
about manner or they would be compelled
to cross the car lines at points where
congestion would ultimately be bound to
occur. Pedestrians to and from the park
would likewise be compelled to cross
carriage and car traffic at its busiest
point, or else take a more indirect
course.

The objections which we raise above

LONGITUDINAL SECTION. BROOKLYN CENTRAL LIBRARY.

Brooklyn, New York City.

crowds may comfortably — circulate
around and obtain an excellent view of
the arch and everything that is going
on in the circle. This arrangement of
the promenade on the outside of the
road, instead of on the inside, has the
added merit of providing for the build-
ings around the circle a magnificent
setting. It must be admitted, however,
that as there are no car lines running
around the Place de lEtoile its traffic
problem is simpler of solution than that
in Brooklyn, especially in providing rea-
sonably distinct lines of communication
for pedestrians, cars and vehicles. In
the Brooklyn Plaza these lines of com-
munication often cross, and on that

Raymond F. Almirall, Architect.
would perhaps have little or no imme-
diate force were the scheme carried out
as it stands; but it is for the future that
such improvements must provide, and
failing in amply providing for the con-
ditions when the region in the Prospect
Park section shall be thickly populated,
the suggested embellishment of the
Plaza is not a satisfactory solution of
the problem. The possibilities exist for
making of this point a civic centre
worthy of a great city of the future, but
these possibilities have not been realized
in the scheme before us, which, although
it is undoubtedly monumental in char-
acter, does not fully satisfy the require-
ments of future use.

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BROOKLYN PLAZA AND CENTRAL LIBRARY.

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108

THE BROOKLYN CENTRAL LIBRARY.

If the design which has been prepared
for the trustees of the Brooklyn Public
Library by the same architect is ac-
cepted, that borough will soon possess
a main library of which any city might
well be proud. Whatever shortcomings
the Plaza plan itself may contain have
been more than counterbalanced in the
design for the new Central Library. Its
position at the head of the openest part
of the Plaza is a commanding and un-
rivaled one, and the manner in which the
architect has adapted his plan on the
irregular quadilateral site to the large
requirements of the building is worthy
of the most serious study and the high-
est appreciation. The accommodations
provide for a most complete library, to
house about two millions and a half of
books. The entire building covers ap-
proximately 100,000 square feet, of
which about 13,000 are occupied by two
large open courts and four small ones,
leaving a ground-floor area of between
75,000 and 80,000 square feet. The to-
tal floor area provided, not including the
main and storage stacks, is about 270,-
000 square feet, or about six acres. This
allowance of area, it is estimated, makes
generous provision for specific require-
ments, without any attempt at mere
size, the plan being so disposed as to
admit readily of extension if at some
future time the needs of the institution
should outgrow its present ample ac-
commodations. Such extension could
be effected at the rear by bridging over
Underhill avenue, as the architect
points out, and utilizing a part of the
site which is at present occupied by the
reservoir that must inevitably give way
in the event of other provision for the
borough’s water supply, which has re-
cently been under discussion.

The plan may be said to recognize, in
the functional requirements of the li-
brary, three distinct departments of
activity which are separately connected
with a central body containing two large
halls of some 11,000 square feet each,
covered by an externally prominent
domical roof. These three separate de-
partments of activity occupy the three
wings which run parallel to the three

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

long sides of the quadrilateral. The
one on the Eastern Parkway contains
the accommodations required by the ad-
ministration of the institution; that on
Flatbush avenue provides for the vari-
ous public reading and study rooms;
and the third wing on the rear contains
the book stacks. All these departments
are not only directly accessible from the
two large central halls—the reference
and delivery rooms—but they are easily
reached from the main entrance on the
Plaza. Attention must be called to the
remarkable way in which the shape of
the site lends itself to the distribution
of these parts, providing precisely the
relative amount of area which they re-
quire. Thus the greater length of the
Flatbush avenue wing marks it for the
main public departments, while the
shorter one on the Parkway amply takes
care of the accommodations demanded
by the working departments of the li-
brary. Similarly, the Plaza side, being
the shortest of all, is plainly marked for
the main entrance, while the great stack
room is appropriately placed in the rear,
away from the public vestibule, but di-
rectly connected with the main distribu-
tion rooms on the basement and second
floors in the centre, the administration
wing on one side and the reading and
study rooms on the other.

While these general excellences of
plan disposition may be pointed out, it
will also be admitted that there are
some, perhaps minor, matters of design
which it is not possible so unqualifiedly
to commend. For instance, there seems
no very good reason why the great
stack room should be lighted by a series
of openings which are hardly more than
slits in the wall. These openings the
architect has alternated, presumably for
appearance, at every fourth window by
a pier the width of two book stacks and
a passage. The resulting external treat-
ment is very effective, it is true. But
would it not be preferable to have the
book stacks better lighted, even if large
windows would not seem to the designer
so ‘emblematic of the arrangement and
function of the room behind them?’ Un-
der the present circumstances, it would
be necessary to depend very largely on

THE BROOKLYN PLAZA

artificial lighting for ready access to the
books not very near the windows.

The ports of the plan cannot be
called otherwise than simple and obvi-
ous, but it is this simplicity and obvi-
ousness in architecture which is one of
the surest signs of serious and successful
study. Like the masterpiece of a great
artist, a simple architectural solution
looks so incredibly easy of accomplish-
ment that it would be impossible to con-
vince a layman to the contrary without
explaining to him the mental processes
that had to be performed to attain the
final and self-evident simplicity which
is no more characteristic of a great piece
of architecture than of an equally re-
nowned painting or sculpture, marking
them alike as exceptional artistic per-
formances.

To those who are not architects, it
may seem unnecessary and wrong to
pay much attention to a mere plan. It
will perhaps seem to them that as the
building under discussion is very much
in the nature of a public monument, the
paramount consideration should be of
“architecture,” monumental effect and
the like. As a matter of fact, the dis-
cussion is of architecture and monu-
mentality, but all good architecture is
referable to the plan from which any
real merit must ultimately come. In the
designs for a monumental building of the
magnitude of that before us, the matters
which it is most important to consider
lie in the plan, and if this meets the re-
quirements of use in an economical,
efficient and effective manner, the char-
acter of the external or internal garb
may, as a rule, be suitably modified, if
necessary, to meet conditions of envi-
ronment and cost. Proceeding, how-
ever, from what is unfortunately the
popular notion of architecture, mere
grandiose appearance, it is impossible to
arrive at a good solution of the prob-
lem and produce something which could
be worthy of the name architecture. In
short, the conception of a building is
inseparable from its plan, in which it
must express itself first and last, and
that being good there is every reason
to believe that its fagades and interior

AND CENTRAL LIBRARY. 109

embellishment can be made equally as
good as its plan disposition.

We must expect the importance of the
plan in architecture will continue for
some time to be very much underesti-
mated by the outsider. Until the
architect is allowed a fairer share of
recognition as the responsible creator of
what should of right be the most popu-
lar of arts, the average citizen will re-
gard his performances as more or less
superfluous and extravagant, basing his
opinion always on secondary and un-
important features of the architect’s
work, which have long been held up to
him as the essence of architectural art.

To return to the immediate subject in
hand, the foregoing must not be inter-
preted as an apology for the form which
has been given to the exterior and in-
terior of the Brooklyn Central Library
design. The intention is to lay empha-
sis on the fact that in viewing the draw-
ings which we publish it is of far greater
importance for the reader to remark in
the plan the clever sequence of the main
reading rooms, which has enabled the
architect to dispense with the customary
corridors, which would greatly reduce
light and area, than to regard with ap-
proval or disapproval the decorative
treatment of the entrance vestibule, with
its grand staircase or the colonnade of
the main facade, which are merely the
embodiment of the emotional elements
of the problem. ‘These features are not
the essential phases of the design, and
are not in any sense to be regarded as
fixed and definite, as are the conditions
of planning which suggest them. They
are subject to further study and elabora-
tion or simplification without producing
upon the basis of the building any radi-
cal modification. It is not the aim of
the architect, in making a design, to
state these matters of detail accurately,
and as he necessarily intends them to
appear in the finished structure.’ The

study that would be required to depict
faithfully the appearance of the building
in its final adjustment of columns, pil-
asters, mouldings and carving would
not only involve an enormous amount of
labor, but would be equally undesirable,

IIo

as the slightest change in the disposition
of the plan might make it necessary to
repeat from the beginning all this labor,
whereas the necessary parings and ad-
justments in plan which are involved in
the subsequent closer and detailed study
of features and details are in the nature
of development and cause no great up-
heaval in the underlying structure of the
design.

The general external treatment of the
design which has been provided for the
Brooklyn Central Library is pleasing and
simple. The problem of the silhouette
has been well handled. Obviously, the
point from which most spectators will
see the new library will be from the
Plaza and on the Flatbush avenue side
of the same. The problem to be solved,
then, was to produce a sky line which
should be equally effective with or with-
out the large central mass. Great prom-
inence has accordingly been given to the
upper part of the great entrance vesti-
bule, which, upon nearer view, forms
an effective termination against the sky.
The large domical roof performs a simi-
lar office when the building is viewed
from a more distant point in the Plaza.
It is, of course, difficult to avoid the im-
pression that the great dome has been
deposited, as it were, in the courtyard
between the wings, but, in the present
case, this feature’s importance, architec-
turally, has been sufficiently reduced to
minimize such an impression.

On the Flatbush avenue and Parkway
elevations there seems to be no reason
in the plan for treating the ends towards
the Plaza with a prominent projection,
and denying such terminations at the
ends “of these facades. Next «tothe
great entrance feature on the Plaza,
the most pleasing facade treatment is
to be noticed on the rear or Underhill
avenue facade. The clever manner in
which the wings have been joined to

tHE ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

each other at their unequal angles is to
be remarked in that view. Another no-
ticeable feature, and one which adds
considerably to the building’s monumen-
tal character, is the long, unbroken cor-
nice lines of the wings. The rusticated
base, too, helps in producing the general
effect of strength and propriety which
the design possesses.

The drawings which Mr. Almirall has
prepared are as elaborate and well pre-
sented as any of which we have a recol-
lection. The programme from which
the architect worked is the labor of Mr.
Frank P. Hill, the Chief Librarian of
the Brooklyn Public Library, and is one
of the most complete and exhaustive
documents of the kind, embodying not
only Mr. Hill’s experience of library
operation, but that of many leading li-
brarians elsewhere, who were consulted
as to the actual working of their build-
ings. To this combined experience is
also to be added the co-operation of the
architect and of Professor Hamlin,
of Columbia University, whom the trus-
tees of the Brooklyn Public Library em-
ployed as consulting architcet to give ex-
pert advice on the design provided.

The problem confronting the architect
was therefore subject to three condi-
tions: the programme, the site provided
by the city, and the environment of this
site. Of these conditions, which were
not without their difficulties, the designer
has, by virtue of the solution which he
presents, acquitted himself with honor.
He has achieved a design which the
trustees of the Brooklyn Public Library
have done well to accept, subject, of
course, to further study and elaboration.
And the citizens not only of the borough,
but of the greater city, should now
lend their influence to an end that will
give them at the same time a splendid
educational centre and a worthy public
monument. Hl. W. Frohne.

An American Architecture

The lot: of the writer
of architectural criticisms
must necessarily be a hard
one, so long as the princi-
ples governing the design-
ing of buildings are so dif-
ferently understood and
interpreted by those mak-
ing the designs.

To demand a literal ad-
herence: to truthful ex-
pression of function from
one who has attempted to
faithfully reproduce a
building or type of build-
ing of a by-gone age,
which in its original state
was erected to house some
utterly different function,
is manifestly to demand the
impossible and condemn the whole thing
from the first; and while it is ob-
viously true that no building can be
really great, architecturally, unless it
does truthfully express its function, still
the process of the evolution of styles is
so gradual, and so much excellent effort
is expended in this very effort to weld
the old and the new, often with results
ingenious and charming, that to con-
demn utterly because an illusion is cre-
ated instead of a fact declared, would be
not only unjust but would practically
do away with the occupation of the
writer of criticisms. For it is true that
a vast majority, indeed, all but a small
minority’ of our architects are actively
engaged in this very exercise, the crea-
tion of architectural illusions; illusions
of foreign lands and climates almost, in-
deed, to be classed as “scene painting”
in solid materials.

Within a single city block in almost
any city in the country it is not unusual
to find examples of the architecture of
England, France, Italy, Germany and of
various periods of each, The Greek or
Roman temple serves indiscriminately
as the model for a church, a library, a

school or perhaps a power-house. The
ancient emblems used in decoration,
which had a definite and literal meaning
in their own day, serve still to dress our
buildings, and we still express our naval
prowess in monuments ornamented with
the prows of Roman galleys, just as
forty years ago our sculptors dressed the
Yankee bust of Abraham Lincoln in a
toga to show that he was a statesman.

It is instructive to look back on the
progress in sculpture in the last forty
years’ as shown in the case of Lincoln
and the toga, and to realize that our
architecture is still largely in the “toga”
stage.

So long as our architects continue to
declare themselves exponents of definite
foreign styles or methods—French, Ital-
ian, English, German, ancient or modern
—and persist in an effort to graft these
styles onto building conditions which
are, and in the nature of things must
be essentially modern and American,
just so long our architecture will be
neither definitely foreign nor definitely
American; and the critic must content
himself with admitting first of all the
theory of evolution of styles, and next
the premise of the designer that his par-
ticular style is right. After these admis-
sions he may hold the designer to his
own premise and judge him accordingly.
But so long as logic is ignored or dis-
carded in the first instance it cannot be
well demanded if the business of writing
architectural critiques is to continue, and
perhaps it is not too much to hope that
just as our sculptors have found in
methods of directness and truth a nota-
ble modern expression for their art, so
the art of architecture, with no thought
for style may find in the simple expres-
sion of the great changes in modern life,
modern building materials and methods
of construction, a vital expression.

There would seem to be a better way.

The theory of the evolution of styles,
as generally stated, is that our style is

Tie AnCdITROTURAL RECORD.

ADDITION TO CHICAGO ATHLETIC CLUB,
CHICAGO, ILL.
Richard H. Schmidt, Garden & Martin, Archts.

copied from another preceding it, and is
so modified by differing conditions of
climate, custom and function that it
eventually achieves an individuality of
its own that is recognized as a style.
This is all very well, but is it not true
that the copying is unconscious? Is it
not true that the designer simply used
the forms and methods that he knew
and devoted his best attention to the
solving of his local functional problems,
thereby creating new forms and meth-
ods? Certainly we know that the forms
of architecture always have followed the
functions, that the changes have been as
great in form as they have in custom or
method.

We know that the discovery or inven-
tion of the principle of the arch com-
pletely altered the form and style of
buildings. We know that the changes
in style occurred sometimes - swiftly,
sometimes infinitesimally through ages
exactly keeping pace with the changes
in the people, their customs and the cli-
mate in which they live. It is not rea-
sonable, then, to suppose that these
changes in architectural form were sim-
ply due to an unconscious evolution in
the minds of the builders striving to
house their needs? Did they not simply
use the forms they knew and create new
ones as new needs arose? The Gothic
builders followed the Romans, but they
did not, even in Italy, follow the Roman
forms, and probably they did not con-
sciously abandon them. ‘There had been
a great change in mind and custom, and
it was faithfully expressed in form and
method of construction.

We are today undergoing great and
rapid changes in mind and custom, and
while our methods of construction
have kept pace, the architectural forms
have not. To-day the old system of pil-
ing stone upon stone, with inert weight
as the bonding fibre in the tissue of the
building, is largely superseded by the
use of steel ties, beams and _ struts.
Buildings no longer stand on the ground
by sheer weight, but are rooted and tied
deep in the ground as is a tree and they
have assumed the same fibrous quality in
construction, if not in form. In form
they are still the same. Elaborately our

AN AMERICAN ARCHITECTURE.

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THE CHAPIN & GORE BUILDING, Richard BE. Schmidt, Architect.

TI4

architects strive to make the old, meagre
handful of shapes and devices cover and
hide the new big structural methods, but
these new methods cannot be hidden,
because they represent changes in our
civilization. And the twenty-story sky-

scraper, standing on its puny _ stone-

THE CHAPIN & GORE BUILDING.

Chicago, Ill.

column legs, advertises the sham of its
system of design, because the winds
would so obviously topple it over if it
were not fibrous, and its stone columns
would so obviously burst and crush to
pieces if they were really stone, as they
pretend.

The trouble with our architecture is,
we are trying to evolve it consciously,

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

when the process of evolution is an un-
conscious one. Would it not be better
to accept the new facts and methods as
glorious opportunities and let them as-
sert themselves in new and glorious
forms? Piers, lintels’ arches, tie-rods,
walls, roofs, windows, materials, tex-

DETAIL OF LOWER STORIES.
Richard E. Schmidt, Architect.

tures and colors are not peculiarities of
any style or styles, but are common to
all styles, those of the past and those of
the future. Balance, proportion, rhythm,
poise, are elements of all design, and
we have the record of the history of
art to teach us what they mean. Every
new problem in building teems with
suggestions for its solution, and when

AN AMERICAN

our designers approach the new prob-
lems boldly and serenely, with a full
knowledge of how the designers of the
past achieved their great successes: and
with courage to try and do likewise we
may begin to look forward to a day
when our successes may also be great.
In the illustrations here published of
some. “of the works of Richard EH.
Schmidt, and of the firm of Richard E.
Schmidt, Garden & Martin, there is evi-

ARCHITECTURE. 115

The new building for Montgomery
Ward & Co., which is rapidly approach-
ing completion on the Chicago lake
front, is a good example of the demands
made upon the resourcefulness of the
modern architect. It is essentially
anv New. type. in the: first. “place, it
is huge, having a ground area of 147,000
square feet’ and a total floor area of
1,323,000 square feet. It has a length of
731 feet and a greatest depth of 275 feet,

THE BROOKS CASINO
Richard EH. Schmidt, Garden & Martin, Architects.

Chicago, III.

dence of a definite attempt at something
of this sort, an attempt to express the
function of the different buildings and
more particularly there is a sincerity in
the use of materials in expressing the
structural facts that is a step toward the
fulfilment of the hope just expressed.
While they are not buildings of the
first importance, they are fairly repre-
sentative of the variety of work that
comes to the average architect’s office.

reduced by the irregularity of the lot to
153 feet on Chicago avenue. Its vast ex-
tent and its immense bulk towering as
well as spreading are unrelieved by
courts, either external or internal. In
fact, it is a huge aggregation of storage
lofts, nine stories high, a repetition of
units of a monotony truly appalling.
Next, it is entirely of reinforced con-
crete construction — foundations, col-
umns, floors and walls all of concrete,

116

even to the exterior. And: finally, it is
a strictly commercial proposition. Built
to house a great commercial establish-
ment with the strictest economy, it is
not intended to be an architectural mon-
ument. It will be noticed that these

Chicago, Ill.

qualifications are functional, structural
and economical, uninfluenced by any
consideration for architectural display or

effect. Indeed, beyond a natural desire
for an effect of stability and order, one
might say that in this building archi-
tectural expression was not wanted. The
materials and dimensions are dictated

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

by functional, structural and economical
needs, and it only remained for the de-
signer of this structure to give to the
form and materials so dictated such
architectural expression as he could.
Obviously, the thing to be expressed

FIGURES IN MAJESTIC BAR.

first was the commercial entity of a huge
enterprise, in itself giving to the struc-
ture the stamp of a new and modern type
of building. Next, the fact of a new
and modern system of construction—a
plastic construction, moulded together
in a practically liquid state into a great
homogeneous whole; not piled together

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Richard E. Schmidt, Architect.

AN AMERICAN

piece upon piece in the masonry way,
but molded together and _ interlaced
with the fibres of steel’ which give to
this material, concrete, the tensile quality
which makes possible a new and modern

ARCHITECTURE.

119

compared to the systems of construction
of ages past. It is apparent that in a
new type of building and with new
materials, such as we have described, no
adaptation of the old forms of architec-

APARTMENT HOUSE,
Richard E. Schmidt, Garden & Martin, Architects.

Chicago, IIl.

system of construction, as new and as
modern as the steel skeleton was in the
day of its first invention.

We speak of the newness of reinforced
concrete construction not as a thing new
in this building, but as new in our day

ture can have any meaning if we care
anything for truth in the expression of
function and structure.

On walls of such vast expanse cor-
nices are futile; friezes, architraves and
balustrades are ridiculous. The great

I20

divisions of the building are the hori-
‘zontal ones, the floors. Vertical divi-
sions do not exist except as fire walls,
which are made light and in a sense tem-
porary, so that their location may be
changed at will. Lines of structural
columns and piers go through from wall
to wall and from floor to floor with in-
evitable regularity. The windows are as
large as may be and of a height which
makes them practically twice as wide as
they are high. These are all structural
and functional demands. In the design
the floor divisions are most strongly
marked; the sills and lintels, the
only projections on the wall, project
only enough to shed water. ‘There is
no cornice; a small flush coping, placed
in the unbroken wall surface above the
topmost windows, fulfils in this building
the demand for unification of parts
which a cornice ordinarily supplies. The
horizontal story division is accentuated
by the filling in with brick of the spaces
between the sills and lintels of the win-
dows. These brick bands are of a dark
reddish brown color, and with the small

terra-cotta bands and panels of the same
color inlaid in the piers form the only
contrast with the gray cement surface of
the exterior walls.

These bands and panels take the place

of the usual mouldings and _ string
courses which, in a building of more
varied form, would fulfil the purpose of
unifying the parts and giving to the
whole, besides its sheer dimension and
endless repetition, the quality of big-
ness, which architecturally represents
the commercial greatness of the insti-
tution. In the first and second stories
there is a change of function. These
floors are given up to the execu-
tive and working departments of the
business, and are distinguished from the
storage floors above by a greater height
and by being grouped together with
piers running through both stories.
Broadly, this is the meaning of the de-
sign. It states the facts with perfect
candor; of repetition and order it makes
rhythm ; from monotony it draws repose,
and always in its forms it is plastic. It
is not the lintel which spans the open-
ing—it is the wall; the lintel is but a

THE ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD,

drip moulding on the lower edge of a
unit wall which in itself spans from pier
to pier.

The design of this building will repre-
sent more nearly, perhaps than any of the
others shown the methods of design dis-
cussed above. If it is not in itself beau-
tiful or graceful, it is at least logical,
and tells a plain, unvarnished tale. The
plain, unvarnished ugliness of the prob-
lem is set forth with a candor and adroit-
ness which almost, if not quite, saves
the solution from damnation, and gives
hope, at least, that the system of design
under fairer, happier conditions will pro-
duce something fairer, happier and not
less truthful. The other buildings illus-
trated herewith show, in a greater or less
degree the same qualities as the building
described. The Chicago Athletic Club
building, in Madison street, is chiefly
noticeable for the precision with which
the club spirit is expressed in the design,
something more private than a hotel, and
none the less residential. It is also re-
markable, structurally, in that, although
48 feet in width, it has no interior col-
umns, each floor spanning from wall to
wall. This would not be interesting
except for the height of the building and
the consequent problems of wind brac-
ing. The building forms an addition
to the old structure on Michigan avenue,
and the necessity of having the ban-
queting hall on the eight floor, so that it
is on the same level with the kitchen,
which is in the old building, has intro-
duced a story nearly twice as high as
the other stories practically in the mid-
dle of the building. An interesting ar-
rangement of fenestration is the result,
and its success is attributable largely to
the freedom of handling and the plastic
quality of the design.

The Chapin & Gore building, in
Adams street, has been reviewed before
in these columns, but in this connection
it is not out of place to call attention
to it as another case of rigid adherence in
design to functional demands. The piers
and walls are of masonry construction,
the lintels only being of fireproofed steel.
The walls over openings are in all cases
designed as self-carrying members, the
lintel courses being merely decorative

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AN ARCHITECTURE

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or not more than drip mouldings. This
seems to us to clearly declare the en-
cased steel support, and also to have the
merit of truth, as no flat arch or appar-
ent surface lintel of masonry could. The
entrances are of solid granite blocks,
including the lintels which carry the
piers above. It is a curious condition of
affairs that in looking at them we are so
accustomed to expect a sham that we
cannot believe that these fine stones are
anything more than thin slabs veneering
a steel lintel within. It is worth notic-
ing that on this building the masonry
and the skeleton construction are clearly
and frankly differentiated in every case.
The curious treatment of the second
and third stories results from the fact
that these floors are used as storerooms
for the shop below, and require large
wall spaces and small windows, while
the upper stories, with large glass areas,
are lofts built for renting purposes.
The Schoenhofen warehouse, which

has also been illustrated in these col-
umns, is again printed in order to call
attention to the same expression of con-
cealed steel lintels and masonry walls,

and also to show where a complete
change of function has received a com-
pletely different treatment without dis-
turbing the unity of the design as a
whole. This is shown in the view of
the street facade, in which the back part
of the building has a group of high win-
dows lighting a boiler roomy over which
is a plain broad wall, concealing sus-
pended coal bunkers. Above this wall
is a group of smaller windows, which
light and ventilate the coal piles. The
front of the building is occupied as a
warehouse, with regular stories.

The Brooks Casino is an auditorium

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

for band concerts. It is 80 feet in front-
age by somewhat more in depth, and is
spanned from wall to wall by steel
trusses which carry the roof. It was
desired to have the ceiling comparatively
low for musical reasons. A concrete
roof and ceiling was therefore combined,
suspended from the trusses, following a
curved line dropping to the eaves on
each side of the building. This fact is
clearly shown and used in the exterior
as one of the principal motives of the
design. A cantilever concrete balcony
around the outside walls necessitates the
division of the windows, and gives the
building the appearance of having two
stories.

In all of these buildings there was in
each case a clear demand for a treatment
new and modern. They are interesting
for the frankness with which this de-
mand has been met. In the remaining
illustrations we have examples of origi-
nality, only less marked because less
imperative. The handling of different
materials has been the basis for the
invention of new forms. Let the
reader, for instance, study with care the
illustration of the Majestic Bar. In the
front of this structure the small
facade is practically one sheet of
delicately modeled cast bronze. The
inside of this room is _ handled
broadly in Swiss Cipolin marble,
with logical recognition of its mag-
nificent veining, and the purpose of the
room is humorously handled in the
sculptured decorations, where the dance
is represented in the large relief panel
and different varieties of vinous exhilar-
ation in the six marble busts disposed

along the bar screen.
William Herbert.

A Pioneer American Architect

Up to the beginning of this century,
with, perhaps, the single exception of
Charles Bullfinch, the first native pro-

fessional architect, the professional arch-
tects in this country, at least those
were of foreign

worthy of the name,

this land. The first principles of the art
are unknown, and there exists scarcely a
model among us sufficiently chaste to
give an idea of them,”

Six years after Jefferson wrote the
above sentence a boy was born in Phila-

WILLIAM STRICKLAND, ARCHITECT.
(1787-1854. )

birth and education, and even Bullfinch,
it is to be noted, was educated abroad.
American architects were slow in devol-
oping, and Thomas Jefferson, himself an
amateur architect of no mean ability,
writes in his notes on the State of Vir-
ginia, 1781: “The Genius of architecture
seems to have shed its maledictions over

delphia, who, if he did not come as a
reformer, was, at least, destined in later
years to achieve a proud place by good
work in the architectural annals oe his
day; and, coming at a time when Amer-
ican- horn architects with talent or merit
were few indeed, the career of William
Strickland, who, during his time, was

124

very generally recognized as the leading
native architect in America, should be
of considerable interest. Yet the present
age of progressive architecture has so
far, in many respects, gone ahead of
Strickland that his designs and works
have become to an extent obsolete and
his career has now been well-nigh for-
gotten, only occasionally to be recalled
in a casual manner in connection with
some of the buildings which he designed,
and which will stand and at times assert
their beauty and prominence to the at-

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

of this country to make a departure from
the Colonial methods of house building
and designs which had prevailed from
the beginning; but in his drawings he
followed, usually, the methods of his
foreign-born predecessors in the pro-
fession.

Perhaps the particular reason why the
life of Strickland is of interest in our
day is because he was probably the first
American born and educated architect to
demonstrate that it was not necessary
for his countrymen, when contemplating

THE U. S. CUSTOM HOUSE.

Philadelphia, Pa.

tention of those who have occasion to
come in contact with them.

William Strickland was a_ self-made
man, and, as his career shows, he must
have possessed considerable genius, as
he acquired in his own land enough
architectural training to design build-
ings of considerable extent and power,
and to apply the forms of the pure
classic order without committing glar-
ing solecisms.

It cannot be said of him that he was
the founder of any new or distinct
school of American architecture, al-
though he was among the first architects

William Strickland, Architect,

the erection of important structures, to
employ foreign talent to carry out their
ideas, and that Thomas Jefferson’s evil
forebodings regarding the school of
American architecture were soon to be
set aside by a race of native architects,
of which Strickland was the forerunner.

William Strickland commenced his
career at a most interesting period in
the history of American architecture,
about the time when the Colonial meth-
ods were fast giving way to a revival,
largely of the classic or pure Grecian
style of architecture, brought about by
‘Thomas Jefferson.

A PIONEER AMERICAN ARCHITECT.

From all accounts, it appears that
Strickland’s first inclinations were not
towards architecture as a profession, as
at first he seemed to prefer the painter’s
brush and the tool of the engraver. He
studied art and architecture in Phila-
delphia, under Benjamin Latrobe, an
Englishman, who was an artist as well
as an architect; and first set up in busi-
ness for himself as a landscape painter.
He soon acquired the art of engraving
his pictures, many of his plates being

125

many years it was the pride and admi-
ration of every Philadelphian, and was
used not only for a meeting-place of the
Masonic fraternity, but also as a hall
where fairs and many other entertain-
ments were held. The use of gas as an
illuminating power in public buildings
in Philadelphia was first tried success-
fully in Masonic Hall.

On the 9th of March, 1819, a fire,
caused by a defective flue, broke out in
Masonic Hall, and in an hour after the

THE U. 8. MINT.
(Lately demolished and replaced by a new and larger structure on Spring Garden Street.)

Philadelphia, Pa,

printed in the “Portfolio,” a magazine
published in the Quaker City in 1814,
i815 and 1816. In view of the late date of
the publication of some of his engravings,
Strickland, even after he had abandoned
painting as a profession for that of
architecture, must still have indulged in
his favorite pursuit as a pastime, as his
first important architectural work was
executed and finished as early as 1800,
when the cornerstone of the Masonic
Temple was laid.

The style of this structure was Gothic.
The building was crowned with a steeple
and a spire of reputed beauty. For

William Strickland, Architect.

first alarm the flames were roaring and
triumphing with vindictive fury within
the walls of William Strickland’s maiden
architectural effort. In an hour or more
the beautiful steeple had fallen, and by
three o’clock the next morning the only
memorials of the late Masonic edifice
were the blackened walls, fitfully re-
vealed by the light of burning embers.
The destruction of this building, which
was during its day probably the most
important piece of architecture in Phil-
adelphia, made a great impression on the
minds of the citizens, and a large litho-
graph, picturing the burning of the

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A PIONEER AMERICAN ARCHITECT.

building was shortly after published
and had an extensive sale. The illus-
tration accompanying this article, and
copied from this lithograph, which is
now quite rare and eagerly sought after
by collectors of such material, furnishes
a very fair idea of the general appear-
ance of the Masonic Hall.

After executing his commission from
the Masons, Mr. Strickland’s next, and
probably most important work in Phil-
adelphia, was the United States Bank
building, in Chestnut street, between
Third and. Fourth, now the Custom

127

steps, making the Parthenon fourteen
feet wider and sixty-six feet seven inches
longer than the Custom House. But, as
the Parthenon has only three steps,
while the Custom House has thirteen,
extending thirteen feet on each front,
the length of the buildings, respectively,
including the steps, would be consid-
erably varied, the length of the Cus-
tom House from the outer step being
one hundred and seven feet, and that of
the Parthenon two hundred and thirty-
six feet nine inches. However, the
double row of columns of the portico,

THE U. S. NAVAL ASYLUM.

Philadelphia, Pa.

House, which, after an existence of over
fifty years, is to-day acknowledged to
be one of the attractive buildings in
Philadelphia. In general appearance it
resembles the Parthenon, although in
general dimensions it is smaller than
the latter building. Their respective
proportions are: the Parthenon, one hun-
dred and one feet one inch in front, ex-
cluding the steps, and two hundred and
twenty-seven feet in length, excluding
the steps; while the Custom House has
a frontage of eighty-seven feet, exclud-
ing the steps, and is one hundred and
sixty-one feet in length, excluding the

William Strickland, Architect.

and the flanking colonnades of the Par-
thenon, requires so much space that the
actual dimensions of the interior of the
two buildings are much more nearly
equal than their proportions would in-
dicate.

The principal apparent differences to
the casual observer in the exterior of
the Custom House and the Parthenon
are that the Parthenon has a colonnade
on the flanks which is wanting in the
Custom House, perhaps on account of
the extra expense that it would have
entailed. Another difference is the ab-
sence of the second row of columns on

128

the portico. These colonnades of the
Parthenon are “very rare. in. . Greek
architecture, as many Greeks doubted
their artistic advantage, claiming that
they had a tendency to complicate
the ‘simplicity.of the style: Phere are
eight fluted columns, each twenty-seven
feet high by four feet six inches in diam-
eter, supporting the portico of the front
entrance, and the same number on the
rear facade of the building.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

square windows were above them. The
roof stood gable fashion, rising above
the third story. A niche near the apex
contained a fine statue in wood repre-
senting Commerce and carved by Wil-
liam Rush, the first American sculptor.
The principal stories of the building
were of brick, while large warehouses
were built back of the main structure for
storage purposes. The building stood

back from the street a distance of forty

INDEPENDENCE HALL.

Phiiadelphia, Pa.

A curious item in connection with Mr.
Strickland and the Philadelphia Custom
House is that he not only designed the
present structure, but also the first ed-
eral building used for a Custom House
in Philadelphia. This building was
opened on the 12th of July, 1819. It
was without architectural pretensions,
apparently, being a plain building, three
stories in height, the front of the first
story of marble. The second story was
lighted by arched windows. Small

(Remodeled by Strickland in 1828.)

or fifty feet. On Second Street, and pro-
tected by an iron gate, there was a heavy
brick archway, with a wide passage in
the center for drays and carts. Small
entrances for pedestrians were on either
side. From these entrances extended on
either side of the archway a low wall,
surmounted by iron palings. The en-
trance in front of the building was by
a central doorway, which led to the main
business room in the second story. In
this building the business of the Phila-

A PIONEER AMERICAN ARCHITECT.

delphia Custom House was carried on
until 1845, when, the United States Bank
having failed, the Federal government
purchased its building, which has since
been in use as a custom house.

In 1815, about the time that Mr.
Strickland was commissioned by the
government to design the first custom

129

was erected in the summer of 1815. It
was built of brick, three stories in height,
and contained one good-sized room on
each floor. Although unpretentious in
appearance, and lacking any architec-
tural embellishments, this old building,
which is still standing but sadly altered
and in a dilapidated condition to the

ST. PAUL’S CHURCH.

Philadelphia, Pa.

house in Philadelphia, he also received a
commission from the managers of the
Academy of Natural Sciences, now one
of the foremost institutions of its kind
in the world, to prepare plans for a hall.
The collection belonging to the Acad-
emy having by that time outgrown its
quarters in rooms on North Second
street. Mr. Strickland’s drawings called
for an exceedingly plain building. which

William Strickland, Architect,

rear of a court running off Arch street,
between Front and Second streets, is
interesting for two reasons. Firstly, be-
cause it was the original home of the
Academy of Natural Sciences, and
serves, by comparison with the magnifi-
cent building at Nineteenth and Race
streets, which is now occupied by the
Academy, to illustrate the growth and
progress of this institution; and, sec-

130

ondly, as a specimen of Mr. Strickland’s
early and most unpretentious architec-
tural efforts.

Judging from the great majority of
his works, it is evident that Mr. Strick-

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

1824, Mr. Strickland took his place as
one of the foremost of America’s archi-
tects, and the number of commissions
which he received must have been ex-
ceedingly gratifying to him.

THE OLD CHESTNUT STREET THEATRE.
(From a photograph taken in 1858.)

Philadelphia, Pa.

land was an ardent admirer of Greek
architecture, as the majority of the im-
portant buildings designed by him ad-
here closely to that classical style.
After the completion of the Bank
of the United States building, in

William Strickland, Architect.

On the 2d of March, 1829, a resolu-
tion was passed by Congress making a
liberal provision for the purchase of a
suitable lot on which to erect a new mint
in Philadelphia. In pursuance of this
resolution, a plot of ground on the

A PIONEER AMERICAN: ARCHITECT.

northwest corner of Chestnut and Ju-
niper streets, extending northward to
Olive street, one hundred and fifty feet
front by one hundred and four feet
deep, was purchased. Mr. Strickland
was employed to prepare a design for
the building to be erected upon this
property. He planned an edifice, employ-
ing the lonic order, taken from the cele-
brated temple of Ilyssus, near Athens,
designing a portico of sixty feet front-
age, with six pillars of the Ionic order

131

garded as a model of architectural pro-
priety, hardly to be surpassed in times
to come; but the natural increase of
business as the country enlarged in the
past fifty years had necessitated several
enlargements and architectural changes
which were not to its advantage. It was
recently demolished, and a new and
much more spacious mint building on
Spring Garden street replaces it.
Another government commission which
Mr. Strickland satisfactorily executed

THE ARCH STREET THEATRE BEFORE ALTERATIONS.
(From an old print.)

Philadelphia, Pa.

on the north and south fronts; the front
was one hundred and twenty-three feet,
and the building carried of that width
from street to street one hundred and
ninety-three feet, including therein two
porticos, each twenty-seven feet in
depth, making a building space one hun-
dred and twenty-three feet wide by one
hundred and thirty-nine feet deep, leav-
ing small open spaces on the east and
west. The form of the building was a
quadrant, with an open court fifty-five
by eighty-four feet in the centre.

This building, when finished, was re-

William Strickland, Architect,

was for the United States Naval Asy-
lum, on Gray’s Ferry Road, in Philadel-
phia, which was commenced in 1827. ©
The edifice faces east, and is constructed
of grayish-white marble, with a granite
basement. It is three hundred and eighty
feet in length, and consists of a centre,
with a high, broad flight of marble steps
and imposing abutments and a marble
colonnade and pediments. The wings
are symmetrical and terminate in pavil-
ions, or transverse buildings, at each
end, furnished with broad covered ve-
randas on each of the two main floors.

132

The building was first occupied in the
latter part of 1832, but was not finished
until 1848.

In 1828, when the city councils of
Philadelphia determined to restore his-
toric Independence Hall, Mr. Strickland

THE BLICKLY
Philadelphia,

was invited to direct his attention
towards the preparation of plans for
that purpose. The first plans which he
prepared were not satisfactory to coun-
cils, and he was compelled to modify
them. Colonial architecture was one
branch of his profession to which he ap-

THE “ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

pears to have paid but little attention up
to this time, but any one who has seen
Independence Hall cannot but agree
that the alterations which were made in
it under Strickland’s direction follow out
closely and harmonize well with the

ALMSHOUSE.
William Strickland, Architect,

ideas of its colonial builders.

The prin-
cipal feature of the restoration appears
to have been the rebuilding of the spire,
which had been taken down, and putting
a clock and bell therein, thus restoring
the building to something like its ap-
pearance: in 1770.

A PIONEER AMERICAN ARCHITECT.

As a church architect, Mr. Strickland
was much sought after, and some of the
handsomest and most attractive old-time
churches in Philadelphia fifty years ago
were of his planning. Unfortunately,
the majority of these sacred edifices have
been taken down; only two churches de-
signed by Mr. Strickland still stand
in Philadelphia—St. Paul’s Protestant
Episcopal Church, on Third street, near
Walnut, a very good example of this

THE
Philadelphia, Pa.

MERCHANTS’ BXCHANGE

line of his work; and St. Stephen’s, on
Ténth: ‘street; near Chestnut. St. “Ste-
phen’s is a much more ornate building
than St. Paul’s, which adheres closely to
the Colonial style, while St. Stephen’s,
which was altered from another build-
ing, is of Gothic design. Its cornerstone
was laid on the 30th of May, 1822.

As an architect of theatres, as well
as a designer for buildings dedicated to
church purposes, Mr. Strickland was
equally in demand. He designed what

133

were in his day the two leading theatres
in Philadelphia—the old Chestnut Street
Theatre, which was pulled down in 1854,
and the Arch Street Theatre, which is
still in existence, although much altered
in appearance and now unused.

Although the Chestnut Street Theatre
was generally admired, there was some
criticism upon the design of the front,
and one local poet, in referring to it,
wrote as follows:

NOW KNOWN AS THE STOCK EXCHANGE.

William Strickland, Architect,

“Its columns Corinthian, in Italy sculptured,

Attest how the arts ’mongst ourselves have
been cultured,

Fluted off and got up without flaw or disaster,

What a shame they omitted to flute the
pilaster!

Their arrangement is neat and supporting—
but, rot it!—

A pediment only, the builder forgot it!”

From this poetical effusion it is to be
judged that the architecture of the old
Chestnut was in Mr. Strickland’s favor-
ite line—Greek.

The Arch Street Theatre was opened

134

alout 1828. When finished it was re-
garded as distinctly in advance of
the theatre architecture then in vogue.
The front was of marble. A screen of
columns projected nearly to the line of
the street supporting a Doric frieze, and
flanked by marble wings. The latter
opened to the staircase and to the pit,
which was reached by a descent from
the street. In the face of the building,
above the line of the second story, was
built a huge marble block, out of which,
several years after the house was
opened, the sculptor Grevelot cut, in
alto-relief, a figure of Apollo. In 1863
extensive alterations were made in the
front of the theatre. Nothing remains
Orit to-day except the figure. of
Apollo, which was placed in a promi-
nent position in the front of the build-
ing, above the line of the third story.
When the city of Philadelphia pur-
chased two hundred acres of land on the
west side of the Schuylkill River, for
the purpose of erecting thereon an alms-
house for the city poor, Mr. Strickland
was called upon to submit a design for
the buildings. He planned four distinct

structures, disposed at right angles with
each other and enclosing an interior
space of seven hundred by five hundred

feet. The men’s almshouse fronts the
southeast. The main building contains
a portico ninety feet in front, supported
by eight columns, five feet in diameter
at the base and thirty feet in height, on
the Tuscan order of architecture, built
of brick and rough cast. The building

is flanked by two wings, each two hun- °

dred feet in length, the portico being
elevated on a high flight of steps rising
before the basement story to those of
the upper story, and thus giving to this
group of buildings a commanding ap-
pearance. The almshouse was first oc-
cupied about the year 1835.

The necessity felt by the Philadelphia
merchants for some common point of
meeting, where they could talk over
matters pertaining to their business, and
arrange for purchases and _ sales, re-
sulted, after a company had been formed
known as the “Philadelphia Merchants’
Exchange Company,’ in their giving
Mr. Strickland an order to prepare plans
for a suitable structure for their ac-

THE “ARCHIPTECTURAL RECORD.

commodation. ‘The cornerstone of this
building was laid on the 22d of Feb-
ruary, 1832, and it was opened for busi-
ness early in 1834, and is at present the
Stock Exchange. It is built of Penn-
sylvania marble, and is in the shape
of a parallelogram, having a frontage of
ninety-five feet on Third street and a
depth of a hundred and fourteen feet on
Walnut street, and is one of the most
unique and original of Strickland’s
buildings. There is a semicircular at-
tachment in the rear with a radius of
thirty-six feet, which makes the total
length, from front to rear, one hundred
and fifty feet. The semicircular portion
is embellished with a portico of eight
Corinthian columns and antae. A cir-
cular lantern rises forty feet above, and
is pierced with windows and orna-
mented. The building was of striking
appearance; the photograph which we
reproduce herewith was taken after
needful alterations had been made.

Mr. Strickland died in 1854, while
engaged in superintending the construc-
tion of the State House at Nashville,
Tenn. By a vote of the Legislature of
that State, a tomb was prepared for his
remains in the splendid edifice which he
was constructing, and there his body
was deposited. On a slab in the tomb is
this inscription: ‘William Strickland,
architect of this building, born at Phila-
delphia, 1787; died at Nashville, April
7, 1054.

Strickland’s last great architectural
effort was, in style, not a departure from
his favorite Greek architecture. It is a
white marble building, with high Greek
porches supported by eight Corinthian
columns at each end. In the centre of
either side smaller porches, supported
by six Corinthian columns each, have
been placed. The building is crowned
with a small tower, which is capped with
a circular lantern, pierced with windows
and ornamented. This lantern is much
the same in appearance as the one which
rises above the Stock Exchange in Phil-
adelphia.

The State House at Nashville stands
on a high eminence, some little distance
back from the street. It is approached
along pretty walks, laid out through
grounds well cultivated with trees and

A PIONEER AMERICAN ARCHITECT.

flowers, which add greatly to the attrac-
tiveness of the building, forming a back-
ground for it of living green that tends
to heighten the whiteness of the marble
of which it is built, and to present the
building in strong contrast to its sur-
roundings. To architects of the present
day, this old-fashioned structure, if ex-
amined closely, would probably be
found to possess many glaring crudities ;

135

work was commenced in 1829, and was
an engineering feat of considerable
magnitude.

Besides being an artist, architect and
engineer, Mr. Strickland was also the
author of several pamphlets; among
them may be mentioned “Triangulation
of the Entrance into Delaware Bay,”
“Reports on Canals and Railways”
(1826), and, together with Gill and

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THE STATE HOUSE,

Nashville, Tenn.

but, as a specimen of the work of a na-
tive American architect of fifty odd years
ago, it can hardly be regarded in any
other light than as a very creditable
piece of work for the period in which
it was designed and planned. Mr.
Strickland was one of the first American
architects and engineers to turn his at-
tention to the construction of railroads,
going abroad to study the best systems
in vogue on the Continent. On his re-
turn he built the Delaware breakwater
for the United States government. This

William Strickland, Architect.

Campbell, “Public Works of the United
States” (1841).

This is a glimpse of the life story of
William Strickland, whose corner in the
history of architecture in America has
been much neglected of late years, al-
though he appears to have been the first
American architect, born and educated,
who succeeded in winning for himself a
renown which made him the equal of
some of the leading foreign architects
of his age.

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St. Louis, Mo.

W. B. Ittner, Architect,

NOTES & COMMENTS

There is a growing
suspicion among archi-
tects that the building

ST. LOUIS
o of St. Louis, in ‘several
SCHOOL departments, deserves
BUILDINGS more attention outside

of St. Louis than it has

thus far received. Mr.
Ittmer, the architect of the St. Louis schools,
has lately been publishing a series of illus—
trations of the school buildings erected from
his designs which confirms this suspicion
as to those edifices. His description is
illustrated with plans and sections and de-
tails which should be very useful to archi-—
tects engaged upon similar tasks elsewhere.
But the photographs of the exteriors make
a most favorable impression upon disin-
terested lovers of architecture whose only
care respecting the school buildings of St.
Louis is that they should be worth looking
at. Even visitors to the Louisiana Pur-
chase Exposition, unless they happened to
be specialists, did not pay as much atten-—
tion to the ordinary and wunexpositional
architecture of the city as it deserved. More-
over, some of the most interesting and
typical of the school buildings had not at
that time been erected. So that the accom-
panying illustrations of the school archi-
tecture of St. Louis will, to many if not to
most of our readers, have the attraction of
novelty in addition to their intrinsic at-
tractions.

While waiving any intention of discussing
the special requirements of school houses,
we may point out that there is one fact
about them, one element in the problem,
which compels attention, for it forces itself
upon the notice even of the beholder of the
exteriors. That is the need for light, for
more light, for all the light. In fact, this
is also the, or at least a, primary require-
ment of the skyscraper. The invention of
the skeleton construction has in the sky-
scraper enabled this requirement to be met
far more satisfactorily than it ever could
have been met if the architects had been
confined to an actual masonry construction.
But in fact if architects were confined to
an actual 'masonry construction there would
have been no skyscrapers at all. So much
space would have been absorbed in the
actual thickness of the necessary walls that
inordinate altitudes would have lost their
economical excuse for _ existence. Ten
stories, it appears, would have been the
maximum that would have been attained
if the steel frame had not come in to sup-
plement the skyscraper as the other factor
of the tall building. The steel frame en-
ables even a lofty tower to be constructed
as a sash frame. The school buildings of
St. Louis are no more skyscrapers than
those which have been erected under Mr.
Snyder’s administration in New York. Not
so much, for three stories appears to be the
maximum in St. Louis’ school building,

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Si, LOUIS SCHOOL BOILDINGS. I4I

whereas New York school building zZzoes a
story or two _ higher. But Mr. Ittner’s
schools bear a family resemblance to those
of Mr. Snyder, a family resemblance due,
one may suppose, not to imitation but to a

wall and sturdy pier, from the general want
of massiveness. Nobody would think of
imputing this want of massiveness to the
designer as a fault. In each case his work
signifies that he is keenly alive to it, and

LAFAYETTE SCHOOL—ENTRANCE.

St. Louis, Mo.

compliance in each case with the same set
of practical requirements. And in each
ease the first of these requirements being
abundant light, the architecture ‘suffers
from it, suffers from the want of unbroken

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

would be only too glad to help it if he could.
Being compelled to build a sash frame he
honestly builds a sash frame and does not
attempt to “palliate or deny’ the skeleton
character of his architecture. But it re-

142

mains true that a building all sash frame
cannot be as welcome a work of architecture
as a building in which the openings are
visibly and emphatically framed in their
enclosing masonry.

In the respect to which we have referred,
the respect of their comparative lowness,

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

can afford to limit yourself to three. Simi-
larly two are more eligible than three. Look
for example at our illustration, the Teach-
ers’ College. It is not, we admit, one of
the most fortunate of the designs of its
author, being not only without a skyline,
but having also the air of a building to

McKINLEY HIGH SCHOOL—DETAIL OF ENTRANCE TOWER. ST. LOUIS, MO.

St. Louis, Mo.

the school buildings of St. Louis enjoy a
great architectural advantage over those of
New York, an advantage apparently due to
the lower degree of congestion and the con-
sequent lower cost of land. Three stories of
school house are architecturally as well as
practically ‘more eligible than four, if you

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

which the roof has not yet been added rather
than of a building which was designed to
be complete without a visible roof. How
much more effective in this respect is the
McKinley High School, in which the ab-—
sence of a simple roof is cleverly compen-
sated by the framed arcades of the parapet.

ST; LOUIS: SCHOOL: BUILDINGS. 143

Apart from the central pavilion containing
the entrance the T'eachers’ College is but
a bald factory, upon the appearance of which
it might be supposed that the designer had
never wasted a thought. And the effect of
the entrance pavilion is in great part lost
by the lack of a more vigorous projection,
and also, as the photograph of the detail

HEMPSTEAD SCHOOL—ENTRANCE.

St. Louis, Mo.

shows, by the lack of some little flank of
curtain wall before the occurrence of the
sash frame. But after all a main explana-
tion of its want of effect in comparison with
others of the series is its greater height in
proportion to its expanse. The Shepard
School, the Clark School, the Hemstead

School, the Cote Brilliante School differ con-
siderably among themselves, although all
variants of a single essential scheme. But
they all have the advantage over the
Teachers’ College of a lowness which em-
phasizes their horizontal expansion, and it
is in this that their common architectural
advantage mainly consists. It consists also

ST. LOUIS, MO.
W. B. Ittner, Architect

in the fact that each of them has a visible
roof, and that the visibility of the roof en-
ables and almost compels a greater va-
riety and interest of outline than would
otherwise be attainable. One has with some
of them, and notably with the Clark School,
again to deplore, as in the Teachers’ Col-

144

lege, the lack of a more decided projection
of the central pavilion. But in all four one
has to acknowledge the existence of a com-
position, and in the treatment of the termi-
nal gables of the Hemstead, and of the
whole frontage of the Cote Brilliante, which
seems upon the whole the most successful of

THE “ARCHITECTURAL RECORD:

ing an excess of voids over solids, and not
seeming to have been designed under pres-
sure to produce a sash frame.

Another great and indeed inestimable ad-
vantage the St. Louis schools enjoy over
those of New York doubtless proceeds from
the same cause of the less exigent demand

FRANZ SIGHL SCHOOL—ENTRANCE.

St. Louis, Mo.

the four, an extremely taking composition,
with the comparative lowness always count-
ing for much in the attractiveness of the

front. In the two cases last named, in-
deed, the architect seems to have succeeded
in circumventing even his primary require-
ment, his broad and low casements not giv-

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

for space or the more abundant supply of
it. The Western official architect cannot
only afford to build lower than the New
York official architect, he can also afford
himself the luxury of enough ground round
about his school house to give it a suitable
frame and setting, and to give the building

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

itself a detachment
desirable,

which

“puilding line’? at the edge of the sidewalk.

is particularly
architecturally and _ practically,
for a school building. The New York school
has to be pushed forward to the actual

145

these photographs with the pictures of one’s
own local school houses that every New
Yorker can see in his mind’s eye to be as-—
sured what a great advantage this is. It
makes less explicable the timidity of the St.

BLOW SCHOOL—ENTRANCE.

St Louis, Mo.

Indeed, one equally admires and marvels at
the liberality of St. Louis in this respect.
The foreground is not even a playground.
Its careful planting and well kept terraces
show that. It is only necessary to compare

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

Louis architect in not projecting his en-
trance pavilions vigorously enough to give
them their due architectural effect, in those
instances in which he has failed to do so.
For, after all, the one picturesque feature

146

which the Procrustean and imposed plan of
a school house leaves architects free to cre-
ate is precisely this. ‘‘They have their exits
and their entrances,” and with them the
possibility of effectively relieving, even a box

THE “ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

often be signalized and made architecturally
effective. The projected room of the Patrick
Henry School, with its ingenious and struc-
tural employment of brickwork, or that
over the entrance of the Lafayette School,

SHEPARD SCHOOL.

St. Louis, Mo.

of sash frames, if such a box they are
doomed by their conditions to produce. But
it will be seen that the St. Louis official
architect has found or ‘made other chances.
The principal’s room, one would say, may

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

with its corbelled balcony, affords a good
illustration of the manner in which the
monotony of a long front can be relieved
while the effectiveness of its extent is re-
tained. And the entrances are almost in-

NOTES AND COMMENTS. 147

variably treated appropriately and _ well,
equally well in a great variety of styles.
For one cannot say that the architect seems
to be more or less at home in the collegiate
Gothic of the entrance to the Wyman, the
Hemstead or the McKinley, the ‘cottage
Gothic” of that to the Shepard or the Emer-
son, the Jacobean garden fronts of the
Blow, the Cote Brilliante or the Teachers’
College, the Renaisance of the Franz Sigel
or the Eliot, or the Colonial of the Clay. It
will be agreed that it is a very interesting
collection of photographs and indicates an
exemplary treatment of school houses, on the
part of taxpayers and municipal officials as
well as of the actual designer.

The Los Angeles bill-
board ordinance has
been a good deal writ—
ten about and, as it
proves, with much of
error and exaggeration.
Even here it was
stated, on the strength
of a widely printed note, that the billboard
tax in Los Angeles was bringing $52,000 a
year to the city. The “City Billboard In-
spector”’ sends word that it will yield about
a tenth of that sum. The billboard ordi-
nance, of which he submits a copy, pro-
hibits any board ‘‘more than ten feet in
height above the surface of the ground,”
advertising signs painted on buildings, how-
ever, ‘being excepted. It requires written
application, with full particulars, for all ex-
cept the small boards, and then a permit
from the Board of Police Commissioners.
No billboard, other than those attached to
buildings, shall be within twenty feet of
the line of any street or other public place.
Persons, firms or corporations desiring to
carry on the business of bill posting or sign
advertising are required to pay a license
fee of $50 for the first quarter or unexpired
balance thereof; and those already carrying
it on pay a quarterly license tax of ‘‘one-
quarter of a cent per square foot of the
superficial area’? maintained by them—ad-
vertisers of real estate being exempt in mak-
ing announcements as to real property. The
tax seems to have had little or no restrain-
ing effect on the billboard business, for the
city has at least as many as other cities
of its size. It has possibly resulted in the
painting of rather more than the usual num—
ber of signs on buildings. But the office
records at least are very interesting. They
are arranged in a card catalogue, each of
the several bill posting firms which do busi-
ness in Los Angeles being represented by a
card of different color. These cards are then

LOS ANGELES
AND THE
BILLBOARDS

arranged according to streets, and on each
card a neatly made diagram shows the ex—-
act location of the board. Other full data
is added. In this connection it may be re-
marked that Los Angeles is unique, prob-
ably, among American cities in a prohibition
of electric signs across the sidewalk. The
gain in the dignity of the city’s night as-
pect is really surprising. The prohibition
arose out of the citizens’ pride in their
ornate and very costly system of lighting
the business streets.

The report on the im-
provement possibilities
PARKS of Dubuque, Iowa, re-
FOR cently obtained from
Charles Mulford Rob-
DUBUQUE inson, was secured by
a joint committee rep-
resentative of the
Commercial Club, the Federated Women’s
Club and the Trade and Labor Congress.
Unanimity of interest on the part of the
community was thus assured. The report
had to do mainly with the park needs of the
city. These are great because, endowed
with a singularly picturesque location on
bluffs overlooking the Mississippi River, the
town’s park possessions consist of only a
couple of quares, each a block in extent,
and of such character as any town on the
prairie might have. Dubuque, in fact, is
one of the very few cities of its size in the
United States that has not even a park
commission. The report, which went into
the local possibilities of a park system, and
the need for it, with a good deal of thorough-
ness, aroused so much popular interest that
a commission is now about to be secured.

The new Auditorium
at Los Angeles —its

CHURCH completion about a year
ago almost removes it

INA from the catalogue of
THEATER ‘new’’ structures in

thea; t 7otast sehen ine,
city—is one of the most
beautiful and notable in the United States.
Indeed, the tourist, entering by the broad
marble foyer that circles it, and taking a
balcony seat at the side commanding a view
of the whole house, is likely to think of
Paris rather than of America, and with a
shock realizes that the West really has
“srown up.’ For a month in the autumn,
grand opera held the boards every week
day night—as it did last year too—and the
months when the program is not grand
opera, it is something else, less dignified.
But regularly—whatever the ballets or

148

other frivolities of the week—when Sun-
days roll around the big auditorium is
thronged again, morning and evening. For
above all else, the auditorium is the home
of Rev. Dr. Robert J. Burdette’s Temple
Baptist Church, and as such it is a re-
markably interesting ecclesiastical struc—
ture. Outwardly, it is not churchly. With
its nine or ten many windowed stories, its

An A

: bela

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

in the shuffle. Still, one day a week it as-
serts itself within, congregations filling most
of the 8,000 seats at two services, and a
prayer meeting sanctifying the smaller
auditorium with its thousand and fifty
seats. The service is dignified, and when
the notes of the big organ accompany a
couple of thousand voices on a familiar
hymn, there is an effect that may well

PATRICK HENRY SCHOOL—ENTRANCE.

St. Louis, Mo.

nearly square area—165 by 175 feet—it is
more like a commercial structure, or, in the
ornateness of its facade, a hotel. The broad
and conspicuous marquise is suggestive of
a theatre; and there are in fact three large
auditoriums under the one roof, and 150 office
rooms, besides committee rooms and various
other apartments, so that, being all of these
other things which it suggests, it is not
strange that modern ecclesiasticism is lost

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

make the straying grand opera goer sit up
and take notice.

The auditorium was built primarily, it is
said, for the church, mainly by the pastor’s
wife, but no one can help the feeling that
the church is in the theatre, and not the
theatre in the church—the better feeling of
the two to have, no doubt. Dr. Burdette,
who is a plain little man, is “discovered”
in the glare of the footlights to be at “right

149

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

‘yooulgoIy ‘10u}T “A “M

"IOOHOS

NOSYGNE

‘OW ‘SINO'T "1g

150

center,’’ ensconced in a massive gilt and
brocade chair, such as DeWolf Hopper
would have graced in a royal role, and the
very hassock that you would expect, of gilt

St. Louis, Mo.

and brocade, is under his feet. The stage is
set for a church scene, even to stained glass
windows at the rear, but you know it is all
canvas. The Gothic rail behind which the

COTE BRILLIANTE SCHOOL—ENTRANCHE.

CHE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

chorus choir is seated on tiers of seats, may
be of wood; but if it is, it was slid in for
the occasion. The Sunday the writer was
there the organ offertory was the Inter-

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

mezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana—quite as
if, at a moment when Dr. Burdette was not
looking, it had dropped down from the ceil-.
ing a relic of the night before.

NOTES AND

Of all the poor and
weak names that have
been given to great
hostelries that of Chi-
cago’s Auditorium An-
nex is probably the
worst. And now the
big -Annex is itself
getting a big annex to which there seems

HOTEL
DECORATION

to be no proper title except Auditorium An-

St. Louis, Mo.

nex Addition. It is again a case, judging
from descriptions and reckoning of costs,
of filia pulchrior, and one wonders—with
this fact thrust prominently before one—
whether after all the whole scheme may not
be a Chicago device for imparting an an-
cestral atmosphere to a new hotel. The
traveler is presented a group picture of
three generations. Tio the Chicago Record-

CLAY SCHOOL—ENTRANCE.

COMMENTS. 151

Herald Isabel McDougal has contributed a
description of the decorations of the new
banquet hall. It is a vast and gorgeous
Louis XVI. apartment, with a “ceiling
strongly reminiscent of the Hotel de Ville
Of Rarisias This ceiling consists of five
panels set in massive gold moldings, each
panel containing a painting by William D.
Leftwich Dodge, relating to the story of
Eurydice. Cupids lean over a balustrade

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

at opposite ends, and in the center “boldly
foreshortened gods and goddesses’ drape
themselves over floating clouds. The ribs
of the ceiling extend down to a gallery
which, with a rail of gilt ironwork runs
around the entire hall. To the gallery open
four arched doorways in ornate gilded mold-
ings. The wall space between the doors is
lavishly ornamented with molded garlands

152

and blue medallions on which float deli-
cately white figures in flying veils and
draperies. There is a statue at each corner
of the hall, and over the doors in high re-
lief are groups of piping shepherds and

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

smaller but ornate adjoining salon, and be—
yond that the stately Tudor Hall.

It has seemed worth while to note with
some detail these decorations, accepting this
new hotel asatype of many that have lately

WYMAN SCHOOL—ENTRANCE.

St. Louis, Mo.

listening nymphs. To all of this one must
add huge chandeliers, draperies of old rose
velvet, glittering side lights and many ‘mir-
rors. If it “looks like money,” it also—we
are told—looks like art, which is a none too
common combination. Then there is the

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

been constructed, offering a type of decora-
tion with examples of which—in hostelry,
club, apartment house and restaurant—New
York is simply bursting. The old song, ‘I
dreamed that I dwelt in marble halls,” evi-
dently expresses a common yearning of man,

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

or more frequently of womankind. Only

now, for a comparatively moderate con-

sideration, one actually can dwell for a space

in a mahogany chamber, with marble bath-

room, and Louis XVI. halls of splen-
4

153

ing world. It is not alone in the gilded East
of golden America—in New York, Phila-
delphia, Boston, and Washington. Dirty
London, gay Paris, modern Berlin, the Swiss
resorts, all have something of the sort. The

TEACHERS’
St. Louis, Mo.

dor, and such countless numbers do so dwell
as to enrich the builders and proprietors.
One is tempted to venture an essay on the
historical, psychological and artistic aspects
of the situation. It certainly is something
new. And it has spread all over the travel-

COLLEGE—ENTRANCH.

W. B. Ittner, Architect.

hotel described is in Chicago; but a new
hotel in Omaha differs only in size. San
Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle—wherever
the trail of the tourist leads, chateau or
palace has arisen. And the curious, even
the pitiful thing about it is that they are all

154

just alike. It would seem as if the style
must certainly affect our domestic architec-—
ture, unless its complete lack of domestic
feeling saves us. It is so palpably public,
or semi-public, that perhaps the _ travel-
ing multitudes who are unimaginative do
not associate the splendor with their
own homes. RO e.Most, Of them, bea at
noted, train time is the Cinderella stroke
of twelve, when all the gaudiness drops
away. But they have had their dream,
have bought their souvenir postals, and
have paid their bills, and maybe they can
come again. Meanwhile, it is encouraging to
observe that there are* enough intelligent
persons, who are becoming satiated with a
sameness of gilt and rose, to create a
profitable demand for the thoroughly com-
fortable, individual, and even cosy big hotel.
That is beginning to give to American
architects a new opportunity, which is in-
teresting and really worth while.

It will be of spe-
cial interest to archi-
tects and architectural
draftsmen to learn that
the Architectural
League of America has

INDIVIDUAL estaplished an Individ-

MEMBERSHIP ual Membership for
persons who are not members of the various
clubs of the League but who are interested
in the study and promotion of Architecture
and the allied arts and professions.

Such persons will be entitled to member-
ship in the League with all the privileges
pertaining thereto, except voting at the an-
nual: convention. They may participate in
all conventions with the privilege of the
floor.

They are also eligible to compete for the
Traveling Scholarship offered by the League,
and for Fellowships offered by several uni-
versities.

Further information and applications for
membership can be secured by communicat-
ing with H. S. McAllister, Permanent Sec-
retary, No. 729 15th Street, N. W., Washing-
ton; (D.C:

THE
ARCHITECT-
URAL LEAGUE
OF AMERICA
ESTABLISHES

The interest that now
exists in the engineer-
ing and architectural
professions in regard
‘to reinforced concrete
construction gives to
this volume, in an un-
usual degree, the value
of timeliness. The authors say that they have
endeavored to cover, in a systematic man-

REINFORCED
CONCRETE
CONSTRUCTION*

*Principles of Reinforced Concrete Construction,
by F. EB. Turneaure and E. R. Maurer, published
by John Wiley & Sons, New York, and Chapman &
Hall, Limited, London.

THE ARCHITECTURAL ‘RECORD.

ner, those principles of mechanics under-
lying the design of reinforced concrete, to
present the results of all available tests that
may aid in establishing coefficients and
working stresses, and to give such illustra-
tive material from actual designs as may be
needed to make clear the principles involved.
This program has been carried out remark-
ably well. We have gone carefully through
the work and have no hesitation in recom-
mending it, especially to the busy man who
wants to get quickly at well digested ‘“‘re-
sults.” The architect will be particularly
pleased with the analytical treatment of the
arch with diagrams, and the other tables
and diagrams that are brought together in
Chapter IV. The book is well printed, the
diagrams are carefully made with thor-
oughly legible lettering (a merit frequently
lacking), and is provided with an index
which we think could have been expanded
somewhat with advantage.

By the death last
summer of Augustus
Saint Gaudens America
lost one of her great-
est sculptors and the
world one of its finest
artistic smindss So
distinguished a _ figure
in contemporary art was. deserving of
prompt and fitting commemoration, and the
object of this notice is to call attention to
the delicate treatment which he has received
at the hands of Mr. Royal Cortissoz, the art
eritic who can justly claim a knowledge of
the man, having enjoyed for many years an
intimate friendship with the great ‘sculptor.
“Saint Gaudens was,’ says Cortissoz, ‘‘not
only our greatest sculptor, but the first to
break with the old epoch of insipid ideas
and hidebound academic notions of style,
giving the art a new lease of life, and fixing
a new standard.” The book as a whole is
a commendable piece of critical and bio-
graphical prose.

The twenty-four illustrations in photo-
gravure are fine, being the first attempt to
bring together a complete series of Saint
Gaudens’ work. In appearance the book is
an attractive tall quarto handsomely printed.

SAINT
GAUDENS
BY ROYAL

CORTISSOZ*

The house of Mr. Edward L. Swift, at Lake
Geneva, Wisconsin, which appeared in the
December issue, is to be attributed to Messrs.
Shepley, Rutan & Coolidge and Mr. H. V. D.
Shaw as associated architects, and not solely
to the latter, as printed in that issue.

*Augustus Saint Gaudens. By Royal Cortissoz.

Houghton, Mifflin and Company,
1907.

Illustrated.
Boston and New York.

VoL. XXIII.

‘
1

OFFICE OF PUBLICATION: No. !! EAST 24th STREET, NEW YORK’ CITY
WESTERN OFFICE: 84! MONADNOCK BLDC., CHICACO, ILL.

Vee,

Buirercs

.
2 NS

Copyright, 1908, by ‘Tue ARCHITECTURAL RECORD Company.”? All rights reserved.
Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter, Post Office at New York, N Y., Act of Congress of March 3d, 1879.

MARCH, 10908. WHOLE No. II4

ely ee

Page
IN THE CAUSE OF ARCHITECTURE: THE WORK OF FRANK LLOYD

WRIGHT. Frank Lloyd Wright
Illustrated.

AN INTIMATE AUDITORIUM: THE INTERIOR OF THE NEW STUY-
VESANT THEATRE IN NEW YORK ea uieieieictersis
Illustrated. Arthur C. David.

MONTGOMERY, WARD & COMPANY’S NEW WAREHOUSE, CHICAGO 228
Schmidt, Garden & Martin, Architects.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.......... UOTE OC NRE AEE ETO 229
The Parker Building Fire — Municipal Action
Necessary—Lake Shore Drive Apartment House,
Chicago—Modern Landscape Gardening—Spring
Garden Branch, Carnegie Library, Philadelphia—
Borie Building — The Los Angeles Plan — New
Haven’s Awakening—Residence of Mr. Henry C.
Butcher—A Cathedral for Halifax—Town Plan-
ning Suggestions—Municipal Art—Publie Building
Sites — Municipal Art Society Meeting-- Foreign
Thoughts on Town Planning.

PUBLISHED BY

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD CO.

preetd ont CLINTON W. SWEET ‘Treasurer, F. W. Dopar
oy Mi. \H. W. Desmond Secretary, F. T. MILLER
11-15 EAST 24TH STREET, MANHATTAN

Telephone, 4430 Madison Square

Subscription (Yearly) $3.00 Published Monthly

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Architectural Record

Vol. XXIII No. 3.

MARCH, 1908.

In the Cause of Architecture

The reader of architectural discourses encounters with increasing frequency discussions
on American Architecture, Indigenous Architecture. These are generally to the effect that in
crder to establish a vital architecture in the United States, it is necessary for the architect
to sever his literal connection with past performances, to shape his forms to requirements
and in a manner consistent with beauty of form as found in Nature, both animate and in-
animate. Articles in this strain have appeared, from time to time, in this and in other
architectural journals, and have been in most cases too vague in their diction to be well
understood, either by the lay reader or the architect.

The sentiment for an American architecture first made itself felt in Chicago twenty years
ago. Its earliest manifestation is the acknowledged solution of the tali office building
problem. An original phase of that early movement is now presented, in the following arti-
cle and illustrations, the work of Mr. Frank Lloyd Wright.

—KEditors of THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

Radical though it be, the work here il-
lustrated is dedicated to a cause conserv-
ative in the best sense of the word. At no
point does it involve denial of the ele-
mental law and order inherent in all
great architecture; rather, is it a declar-
ation of love for the spirit of that law
and order, and a reverential recognition
of the elements that made its ancient let-
ter in its time vital and beautiful.

Primarily, Nature furnished the mate-
rials for architectural motifs out of
which the architectural forms as we
know them to-day have been developed,
and, although our practice for centuries
has been for the most part to turn from
her, seeking inspiration in books and ad-
hering slavishly to dead formulae, her
wealth of suggestion is inexhaustible ; her
riches greater than any man’s desire. I
know with what suspicion the man is re-
garded who refers matters of fine art
back to Nature. I know that it is usually
an ill-advised return that is attempted,
for Nature in external, obvious aspect is
the usually accepted sense of the term
and the nature that is reached. But given
inherent vision there is no source so fer-

tile, so suggestive, so helpful esthetically
for the architect as a comprehension of
natural law. As Nature is never right for
a picture so is she never right for the
architect—that is, not ready-made. Nevy-
ertheless, she has a practical school be-
neath her more obvious forms in which
a sense of proportion may be cultivated,
when Vignola and Vitruvius fail as they
must always fail. It is there that he may
develop that sense of reality that trans-
lated to his own field in terms of his own
work will lift him far above the realistic
in his art; there he will be inspired by
sentiment that will never degenerate to
sentimentality and he will learn to draw
with a surer hand the every-perplexing
line between the curious and the beauti-
ful.

A sense of the organic is indispensable
to an architect; where can he develop it
so surely as in this school? A knowledge
of the relations of form and function lies
at the root of his practice ; where else can
he find the pertinent object lessons Na-
ture so readily furnishes? Where can he
study the differentiations of form that
go to determine character as he can

Copyright, 1908, by * Taz ARCHITECTURAL RECcoRD Company.” All rights reserved.
Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter, Post Office at New York, N Y., Act of Congress of March 3d, 1879,

156

study them in the trees? Where can
that sense of inevitableness characteris-
tic of a work of art be quickened as it
may be by intercourse with nature in this
sense?

Japanese art knows this school more
intimately than that of any people. In
common use in their language there are
many words like the word “edaburi,”
which, translated as near as may be,
means the formative arrangement of the
branches of a tree. We have no such
word in English, we are not yet suffi-
ciently civilized to think in such terms,
but the architect must not only learn to
think in such terms but he must learn in
this school to fashion his vocabulary for
himself and furnish it in a comprehensive
way with useful words as significant as
this one.

For seven years it was my good for-
tune to be the understudy of a great
teacher and a great architect, to my mind
the greatest of his time—Mr. Louis H.
Sullivan.

Principles are not invented, they are
not evolved by one man or one age, but
Mr. Sullivan’s perception and practice of
them amounted to a revelation at a time
when they were commercially inexpedient
and all but lost to sight in current prac-
tice. The fine art sense of the profession
was at that time practically dead; only
glimmerings were perceptible in the work
of Richardson and of Root.

Adler and Sullivan had little time to
design residences. The few that were
unavoidable fell to my lot outside of of-
fice hours. So largely, it remained for
me to carry into the field of domestic
architecture the battle they had begun in
commercial building. During the early
years of my own practice I found this
lonesome work. Sympathizers of any
kind were then few and they were not
found among the architects. I well re-
member how “the message” burned with-
in me, how I longed for comradeship un-
til I began to know the younger men and
how welcome was Robert Spencer, and
then Myron Hunt, and Dwight Perkins,
Arthur Heun, George Dean and Hugh
Garden. Inspiring days they were, I am
sure, for us all. Of late we have been
too busy to see one another often, but the

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

“New School of the Middle West” is be-
ginning to be talked about and perhaps
some day itis to be. For why not the
same ‘Life’ and blood in architecture
that is the essence of all true art?

In 1894, with this text from Carlyle
at the top of the page—“The Ideal
is within thyself, thy condition is but the
stuff thou art to shape that same Ideal
out of’—I formulated the following
“propositions.” I set them down here
much as they were written then, al-
though in the light of experience they
might be stated more completely and
succinctly.

I.—Simplicity and Repose are qualities
that measure the true value of any
work of art.

But simplicity is not in itself an end
nor is it a matter of the side of a barn
but rather an entity with a graceful
beauty in its integrity from which dis-
cord, and all that is meaningless, has
been eliminated. A wild flower is truly
simple. Therefore:

1. A building should contain as few
rooms as will meet the conditions
which give it rise and under which we
live, and which the architect should
strive continually to simplify; then the
ensemble of the rooms should be care-
fully considered that comfort and util-
ity may go hand in hand with beauty.
Beside the entry and necessary work
rooms there need be but three rooms
on the ground floor of any house, liv-
ing room, dining room and kitchen,
with the possible addition of a “social
office”; really there need be but one
room, the living room with require-
ments otherwise sequestered from it
or screened within it by means of archi-
tectural contrivances.

2. Openings should occur as integral
features of the structure and form, if
possible, its natural ornamentation.

3. An excessive love of detail has
ruined more fine things from the stand-
point of fine art or fine living than any
one human shortcoming—it is hope-
lessly vulgar. Too many houses, when
they are not little stage settings or
scene paintings, are mere notion stores,
bazaars or junk-shops. Decoration is
dangerous unless you understand it

IN - PEE CAUSE OF ARCHITECTURE. 157

thoroughly and are satisfied that it
means something good in the scheme
as a whole, for the present you are
usually better off without it. Merely
that it “looks rich” is no justification
for the use of ornament.

4. Appliances or fixtures as such are
undesirable. Assimilate them together
with all appurtenances into the design
of the structure.

5. Pictures deface walls oftener than
they decorate them. Pictures should
be decorative and incorporated in the
general scheme as decoration.

6. The most truly satisfactory apart-
ments are those in which most or all of
the furniture is built in as a part of the
original scheme considering the whole
as an integral unit.

II.—There should be as many kinds
(styles) of houses as there are kinds
(styles) of people and as many differen-
tiations as there are different individuals.
A man who has individuality (and what
man lacks it?) has a right to its expres-
sion in his own environment.

III.—A building should appear to grow
easily from its site and be shaped to har-
monize with its surroundings if Nature is
manifest there, and if not try to make it
as quiet, substantial and organic as She
would have been were the opportunity
Flers:*

We of the Middle West are living on
the prairie. The prairie has a beauty of its
own and we should recognize and accen-
tuate this natural beauty, its quiet level.
Hence, gently sloping roofs, low propor-
tions, quiet sky lines, suppressed heavy-
set chimneys and sheltering overhangs,
low terraces and out-reaching walls se-
questering private gardens.

IV.—Colors require the same conven-
tionalizing process to make them fit to
live with that natural forms do; so go to
the woods and fields for color schemes.
Use the soft, warm, optimistic tones of
earths and autumn leaves in preference
to the pessimistic blues, purples or cold
greens and grays of the ribbon counter ;
they are more wholesome and _ better
adapted in most cases to good decoration.

*In this I had in mind the barren town lots
devoid of tree or natural incident, town houses
and board walks only in evidence.

V.—Bring out the nature of the mate-
rials, let their nature intimately into your
scheme. Strip the wood of varnish and
let it alone—stain it. Develop the nat-
ural texture of the plastering and stain
it. Reveal the nature of the wood, plas-
ter, brick or stone in your designs; they
are all by nature friendly and beautiful.
No treatment can be really a matter of
fine art when these natural characteristics
are, or their nature is, outraged or neg-
lected.

VI—A house that has character stands
a good chance of growing more valuable
as it grows older while a house in the
prevailing mode, whatever that mode
may be, is soon out of fashion, stale and
unprofitable.

Buildings like people must first be sin-
cere, must be true and then withal as
gracious and lovable as may be.

Above all, integrity. The machine is
the normal tool of our civilization, give
it work that it can do well—nothing is of
greater importance. To do this will be to
formulate new industrial ideals, sadly
needed.

These propositions are chiefly interest-
ing because for some strange reason they
were novel when formulated in the face
of conditions hostile to them and because
the ideals they phrase have been prac-
tically embodied in the buildings that
were built to live up to them. The build-
ings of recent years have not only been
true to them, but are in many cases a
further development of the simple propo-
sitions so positively stated then.

Happily, these ideals are more com-
monplace now. Then the sky lines of our
domestic architecture were fantastic
abortions, tortured by features that dis-
rupted the distorted roof surfaces from
which attenuated chimneys like lean fin-
gers threatened the sky; the invariably
tall interiors were cut up into box-like
compartments, the more boxes the finer
the house; and “Architecture” chiefly
consisted in healing over the edges of the
curious collection of holes that had to be
cut in the walls for light and air and to
permit the occupant to get in or out.
These interiors were always slaughtered
with the butt and slash of the old plinth
and corner block trim, of dubious origin,

158

and finally smothered with horrible mil-
linery.

That individuality in a building was
possible for each home maker, or desir-
able, seemed at that time to rise to the
dignity of an idea. Even cultured men
and women care so little for the spiritual
integrity of their environment; except in
rare cases they are not touched, they sim-
ply do not care for the matter so long as
their dwellings are fashionable or as good
as those of their neighbors and keep them
dry and warm. A structure has no more
meaning to them esthetically than has
the stable to the horse. And this came to
me in the early years as a definite dis-
couragement. There are exceptions, and
I found them chiefly among American
men of business with unspoiled instincts
and untainted ideals. A man of this type
usually has the faculty of judging for
himself. He has rather liked the “idea”
and much of the encouragement this
work receives comes straight from him
because the “common sense” of the thing
appeals to him. While the “cultured” are
still content with their small chateaux,

Colonial wedding cakes, English affecta-
tions or French millinery, he prefers a

poor thing but his own. He errs on the
side of character, at least, and when the
test of time has tried his country’s de-
velopment architecturally, he will have
contributed his quota, small enough in
the final outcome though it be; he will
be regarded as a true conservator.

In the hope that some day America
may live her own life in her own build-
ings, in her own way, that is, that we
may make the best of what we have for
what it honestly is or may become, I have
endeavored in this work to establish a
harmonious relationship between ground
plan and elevation of these buildings,
considering the one as a solution and the
other an expression of the conditions of
a problem of which the whole is a pro-
ject. Ihave tried to establish an or-
ganic integrity to begin with, forming the
basis for the subsequent working out of
a significant grammatical expression and
making the whole, as nearly as I could,
consistent.

What quality of style the buildings may
possess is due to the artistry with which

CHE ARCEIPECTURAL “RECORD:

the conventionalization as a solution and
an artistic expression of a specific prob-
lem within these limitations has been
handled. The types are largely a matter
of personal taste and may have much or
little to do with the American architec-
ture for which we hope.

From the beginning of my practice the
question uppermost in my mind has been
not “what style” but “what is style?” and
it is my belief that the chief value of the
work illustrated here will be found in the
fact that if in the face of our present day
conditions any given type may be treated
independently and imbued with the qual-
ity of style, then a truly noble architec-
ture is a definite possibility, so soon as
Americans really demand it of the archi-
tects of the rising generation.

I do not believe we will ever again
have the uniformity of type which has
characterized the so-called great “styles.”
Conditions have changed; our ideal is
Democracy, the highest possible expres-
sion of the individual as a unit not incon-
sistent with a harmonious whole. The
average of human intelligence rises stead-
ily, and as the individual unit grows
more and more to be trusted we will have
an architecture with richer variety in
unity than has ever arisen before; but the
forms must be born out of our changed
conditions, they must be true forms,
otherwise the best that tradition has to
offer is only an inglorious masquerade,
devoid of vital significance or true spir-
itual value. cas

The trials of the early days were many
and at this distance picturesque. Work-
men seldom like to think, especially if
there is financial risk entailed; at your
peril do you disturb their established pro-
cesses mental or technical. To do any-
thing in an unusual, even if in a better
and simpler way, is to complicate the sit-
uation at once. Simple things at that
time in any industrial field were nowhere
at hand. A piece of wood without a
moulding was an anomaly; a plain wood-
en slat instead of a turned baluster a
joke; the omission of the merchantable
“grille” a crime; plain fabrics for hang-
ings or floor covering were nowhere to
be found in stock. _

To become the recognized enemy of

IN THE CAUSE OF ARCHITECTURE. 159

the established industrial order was no
light matter, for soon whenever a set of
my drawings was presented to a Chi-
cago mill-man for figures he would will-
ingly enough unroll it, read the archi-
tect’s name, shake his head and return it
with the remark that he was “not hunting
for trouble” ; sagacious owners and gen-
eral contractors tried cutting out the
name, but in vain, his perspicacity was
rat-like, he had come to know “the look
of the thing.’ So, in addition to the spe-
cial preparation in any case necessary for
every little matter of construction and
finishing, special detail drawings were
necessary merely to show the things to be
left off or not done, and not only studied
designs for every part had to be made but
quantity surveys and schedules of mill
work furnished the contractors beside.
This, in a year or two, brought the archi-
tect face to face with the fact that the fee
for his service “established” by the Amer-
ican Institute of Architects was intended
for something stock and shop, for it
would not even pay for the bare drawings
necessary for conscientious work.

The relation of the architect to the eco-
nomic and industrial movement of his
time, in any fine art sense, is still an af-
fair so sadly out of joint that no one may
easily reconcile it. All agree that some-
thing has gone wrong and except the
architect be a plain factory magnate, who
has reduced his art to a philosophy of old
clothes and sells misfit or made-over-
ready-to-wear garments with commercial
aplomb and social distinction, he cannot
succeed on the present basis established
by common practice. So, in addition to
a situation already complicated for them,
a necessarily increased fee stared in the
face the clients who dared. But some did
dare, as the illustrations prove.

The struggle then was and still is to
make “good architecture,” “good busi-
ness.” It is perhaps significant that in
the beginning it was very difficult to se-
cure a building loan on any terms upon
one of these houses, now it is easy to se-
cure a better loan than ordinary ; but how
far success has attended this ambition the
owners of these buildings alone can tes-
tify. Their trials have been many, but
each, I think, feels that he has as much

house for his money as any of his neigh-
bors, with something in the home in-
trinsically valuable besides, which will
not be out of fashion in one lifetime,
and which contributes steadily to his dig-
nity and his pleasure as an individual.

It would not be useful to dwell further
upon difficulties encountered, for it is the
common story of simple progression
everywhere in any field; I merely wish to
trace here the ‘“‘motif”’ behind the types.
A study of the illustrations will show that
the buildings presented fall readily into
three groups having a family resem-
blance; the low-pitched hip roofs, heaped
together in pyramidal fashion, or present-
ing quiet, unbroken skylines; the low
roofs with simple pediments countering
on long ridges; and those topped with a
simple slab. Of the first type, the
Winslow, Henderson, Willits, Thomas,
Heurtley, Heath, Cheney, Martin, Little,
Gridley, Millard, Tomek, Coonley and
Westcott houses, the Hillside Home
School and the Pettit Memorial Chapel
are typical. Of the second type. the
Bradley, Hickox, Davenport and Dana
houses are typical. Of the third, Atelier
for Richard Bock, Unity Church, the
concrete house of the Ladies’ Home
Journal and other designs in process of
execution. The Larkin Building is a
simple, dignified utterance of a plain,
utilitarian type with sheer brick walls and
simple stone copings. The studio is
merely an early experiment in “articula-
tion.”

Photographs do not adequately present
these subjects. A building has a presence
as has a person that defies the photog-
rapher, and the color so necessary to the
complete expression of the form is neces-
sarily lacking, but it will be noticed that
all the structures stand upon their foun-
dations to the eye as well as physically.
There is good, substantial preparation at
the ground for all the buildings and it is
the first grammatical expression of all the
types. This preparation, or watertable, is
to these buildings what the stylobate was
to the ancient Greek temple. To gain it,
it was necessary to reverse the estab-
lished practice of setting the supports of
the building to the outside of the wall and
to set them to the inside, so as to leave

160

the necessary support for the outer base.
This was natural enough and good
enough construction but many an owner
was disturbed by private information
from the practical contractor to the effect
that he would have his whole house in the
cellar if he submitted to it. This was at
the time a marked innovation though the
most natural thing in the world and to
me, to this day, indispensable.

With this innovation established, one
horizontal stripe of raw material, the
foundation wall above ground, was elimi-
nated and the complete grammar of type
one made possible. A simple, unbroken
wall surface from foot to level of second
story sill was thus secured, a change of
material occuring at that point to form
the simple frieze that characterizes the
earlier buildings. Even this was fre-
quently omitted as in the Francis apart-
ments and many other buildings and the
wall was let alone from base to cornice or
eaves.

“Dress reform houses” they were
called, I remember, by the charitably dis-
posed. What others called them will
hardly bear repetition.

As the wall surfaces were thus simpli-
fied and emphasized the matter of fenes-
tration became exceedingly difficult and
more than ever important, and often I
used to gloat over the beautiful buildings
I could build if only it were unnecessary
to cut holes in them; but the holes were
managed at first frankly as in the Wins-
low house and later as elementary con-
stituents of the structure grouped in
rhythmical fashion, so that all the light
and air and prospect the most rabid
clinet could wish would not be too much
from an artistic standpoint; and of this
achievement I am proud. The groups are
managed, too, whenever required, so that
overhanging eaves do not shade them, al-
though the walls are still protected from
the weather. Soon the poetry-crushing
characteristics of the guillotine window,
which was then firmly rooted, became ap-
parent and, single-handed I waged a de-
termined battle for casements swinging
out, although it was necessary to have
special hardware made for them as there
was none to be had this side of England.
Clients would come ready to accept any

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

innovation but “those swinging win-
dows,” and when told that they were in
the nature of the proposition and that
they must take them or leave the rest,
they frequently employed “the other fel-
low” to give them something “near,”
with the “practical” windows dear to
their hearts.

With the grammar so far established,
came an expression pure and simple, even
classic in atmosphere, using that much-
abused word in its best sense; implying,
that is, a certain sweet reasonableness of
form and outline naturally dignified.

I have observed that Nature usually
perfects her forms; the individuality of
the attribute is seldom sacrified; that is,
deformed or mutilated by co-operative
parts. She rarely says a thing and tries
to take it back at the same time. She
would not sanction the “classic” pro-
ceeding of, say, establishing an “order,”
a colonnade, then building walls between
the columns of the order reducing them
to pilasters, thereafter cutting holes in
the wall and pasting on cornices with
more pilasters around them, with the
result that every form is outraged, the
whole an abominable mutilation, as is
most of the the architecture of the Re-
naissance wherein style corrodes style
and all the forms are stultified.

In laying out the ground plans for
even the more insignificant of these
buildings a simple axial law and order
and the ordered spacing upon a system of
certain structural units definitely estab-
lished for each structure in accord with
its scheme of practical construction and
esthetic proportion, is practiced as an
expedient to simplify the technical diffi-
culties of execution, and, although the
symmetry may not be obvious always the
balance is usually maintained. The plans
are as a rule much more articulate than
is the school product of the Beaux Arts.
The individuality of the various functions
of the various features is more highly de-
veloped; all the forms are complete in
themselves and frequently do duty at the
same time from within and without as
decorative attributes of the whole. This
tendency to greater individuality of the
parts emphasized by more and more com-
plete articulation will be seen in the plans

IN THE CAUSE OF ARCHITECTURE. 161

for Unity Church, the cottage for Eliza-
beth Stone at Glencoe and the Avery
Coonly house in process of construction
at Riverside, Illinois. Moreover, these
ground plans are merely the actual pro-
jection of a carefully considered whole.
The “architecture” is not “thrown up’ as
an artistic exercise, a matter of elevation
from a preconceived ground plan. The
schemes are conceived in three dimen-
sions as organic entities, let the pictur-
esque perspective fall how it will. While
a sense of the incidental perspectives the
design will develop is always present, I
have great faith that if the thing is right-
ly put together in true organic sense with
proportions actually right the picturesque
will take care of itself. No man ever
built a building worthy the name of
architecture who fashioned it in perspec-
tive sketch to his taste and then fudged
the plan to suit. Such methods produce
mere scene-painting. A perspective may
be a proof but it is no nurture.

As to the mass values of the buildings
the zsthetic principles outlined in propo-
sition III will account in a measure for
their character.

In the matter of decoration the ten-
dency has been to indulge it less and less,
in many cases merely providing certain
architectural preparation for natural foli-
age or flowers, as it is managed in say,
the entrance to the Lawrence house at
Springfield. This use of natural foliage
and flowers for decoration is carried to
quite an extent in all the designs and, al-
though the buildings are complete with-
out this effloresence, they may be said to
blossom with the season. What architec-
tural decoration the buildings carry is not
only conventionalized to the point where
it is quiet and stays as a sure foil for the
nature forms from which it is derived
and with which it must intimately asso-
ciate, but it is always of the surface,
never on it.

The windows usually are provided
with characteristic straight line patterns
absolutely in the flat and usually severe.
The nature of the glass is taken into ac-
count in these designs as is also the metal
bar used in their construction, and most
of them are treated as metal “grilles”
with glass inserted forming a simple

rhythmic arrangement of straight lines
and squares made as cunning as possible
so long as the result is quiet. The aim is
that the designs shall make the best of
the technical contrivances that produce
them.

In the main the ornamentation is
wrought in the warp and woof of the
structure. It is constitutional in the best
sense and is felt in the conception of the
ground plan. To elucidate this element
in composition would mean a long story
and perhaps a tedious one though to me
it is the most fascinating phase of the
work, involving the true poetry of con-
ception.

The differentiation of a single, certain
simple form characterizes the expression
of one building. Quite a different form
may serve for another, but from one
basic idea all the formal elements of de-
sign are in each case derived and held
well together in scale and character. The
form chosen may flare outward, opening
flower-like to the sky as in the Thomas
house; another, droop to accentuate artis-
tically the weight of the masses; another
be non-committal or abruptly emphatic,
or its grammar may be deduced from
some plant form that has appealed to me,
as certain properties in line and form of
the sumach were used in the Lawrence
house at Springfield; but in every case
the motif is adhered to throughout so
that it is not too much to say that each
building esthetically is cut from one
piece of goods and consistently hangs
together with an integrity impossible
otherwise.

In a fine art sense these designs have
grown as natural plants grow, the indi-
viduality of each is integral and as com-
plete as skill, time, strength and circum-
stances would permit.

The method in itself does not of neces-
sity produce a beautiful building, but it
does provide a framework as a_ basis
which has an organic integrity, suscepti-
ble to the architect’s imagination and at
once opening to him Nature’s wealth of
artistic suggestion, ensuring him a guid-
ing principle within which he can never
be wholly false, out of tune, or lacking
in rational motif. The subtleties, the
shifting blending harmonies, the ca-

162

dences, the nuances are a matter of his
own nature, his own susceptibilities and
faculties.

But self denial is imposed upon the
architect to a far greater extent than
upon any other member of the fine art
family. The temptation to sweeten work,
to make each detail in itself lovable and
expressive is always great; but that the
whole may be truly eloquent of its ulti-
mate function restraint is imperative. To
let individual elements arise and shine at
the expense of final repose is for the
architect, a betrayal of trust for buildings
are the background or framework for the
human life within their walls and a foil
for the nature efflorescence without. So
architecture is the most complete of con-
ventionalizations and of all the arts the
most subjective except music.

Music may be for the architect ever
and always a sympathetic friend whose
counsels, precepts and patterns even are
available to him and from which he need
not fear to draw. But the arts are to-
day all cursed by literature; artists at-
tempt to make literature even of music,
usually of painting and sculpture and
doubtless would of architecture also,
were the art not moribund; but whenever
it is done the soul of the thing dies and
we have not art but something far less
for which the true artist can have neither
affection nor. respect... =~.

Contrary to the usual supposition this
manner of working out a theme is more
flexible than any working out in a fixed,
historic style can ever be, and the indi-
viduality of those concerned may receive
more adequate treatment within legiti-
mate limitations. This matter of indi-
viduality puzzles many ; they suspect that
the individuality of the owner and occu-
pant of a building is sacrificed to that of
the architect who imposes his own upon
Jones, Brown and Smith alike. An
architect worthy of the name has an in-
dividuality, it is true; his work will and
should reflect it, and his buildings will all
bear a family resemblance one to an-
other. The individuality of an owner is
first manifest in his choice of his archi-
tect, the individual to whom he entrusts
his characterization. He sympathizes
with his work; its expression suits him

THE ARCHITECTURAL: RECORD.

and this furnishes the common ground
upon which client and architect may
come together. Then, if the architect is
what he ought to be, with his ready tech-
nique he conscientiously works for the
client, idealizes his client’s character and
his client’s tastes and makes him feel that
the building is his as it really is to such
an extent that he can truly say that he
would rather have his own house than
any other he has ever seen. Is a portrait,
say by Sargent, any less a revelation of
the character of the subject because it
bears his stamp and is easily recognized
by any one as a Sargent? Does one lose
his individuality when it is interpreted
sympathetically by one of his own race
and time who can know him and his
needs intimately and idealize them; or
does he gain it only by having adopted
or adapted to his condition a ready-made
historic style which is the fruit of a seed-
time other than his, whatever that style
may be?

The present industrial condition is con-
stantly studied in the practical applica-
tion of these architectural ideals and the
treatment simplified and arranged to fit
modern processes and to utilize to the
best advantage the work of the machine.
The furniture takes the clean cut,
straight-line forms that the machine can
render far better than would be possible
by hand. Certain facilities, too, of the
machine, which it would be interesting
to enlarge upon, are taken advantage of
and the nature of the materials is usu-
ally revealed in the process.

Nor is the atmosphere of the result in
its completeness new and hard. In most
of the interiors there will be found a
quiet, a simple dignity that we imagine
is only to be found in the “old” and it is
due to the underlying organic harmony,
to the each in all and the all in each
throughout. This is the modern oppor-
tunity—to make of a building, together
with its equipment, appurtenances and
environment, an entity which shall con-
stitute a complete work of art, and a
work of art more valuable to society as a
whole than has before existed because
discordant conditions endured for centur-
ies are smoothed away; everyday life
here finds an expression germane to its

ENE CD EE OA Ss E.On MARCH ECT ORE. 163

daily existence; an idealization of the
common need sure to be uplifting and
helpful in the same sense that pure air to
breathe is better than air poisoned with
noxious gases.

An artist’s limitations are his best
friends. The machine is here to stay. It
is the forerunner of the democracy that
is our dearest hope. There is no more
important work before the architect now
that to use this normal tool of civilization
to the best advantage instead of prostitut-
ing it as he has hitherto done in repro-
ducing with murderous ubiquity forms
born of other times and other conditions
and which it can only serve to destroy.

3K <

The exteriors of these structures will
receive less ready recognition perhaps
than the interiors and because they are
the result of a radically different concep-
tion as to what should constitute a build-
ing. We have formed a habit of mind
concerning architecture to which the ex-
pression of most of these exteriors must
be a shock, at first more or less disagree-
able, and the more so as the habit of mind
is more narrowly fixed by so called clas-
sic training. Simplicity is not in itself
an end; it is a means to an end.. Our
zsthetics are dyspeptic from incontinent
indulgence in “Frenchite” pastry. We
crave ornament for the sake of ornament ;
cover up our faults of design with orna-
mental sensualities that were a long time
ago sensuous ornament. We will do well
to distrust this unwholesome and unholy
craving and look to the simple line; to
the clean though living form and quiet
color for a time, until the true signifi-
cance of these things has dawned for us

once more. The old structural forms

which up to the present time, have spelled
“architectures are decayed: — [heir lite
went from them long ago and new con-
ditions industrially, steel and concrete
and terra cotta in particular, are prophe-
sying a more plastic art wherein as the
flesh is to our bones so will the covering
be to the structure, but more truly and
beautifully expressive than ever. But
that is along story. This reticence in the
matter of ornamentation is characteristic
of these structures and for at least two
reasons; first, they are the expression of

an idea that the ornamentation of a build-
ing should be constitutional, a matter of
the nature of the structure beginning
with the ground plan. In the buildings
themselves, in the sense of the whole,
there is lacking neither richness nor inci-
dent but their qualities are secured not
by applied decoration, they are found in
the fashioning of the whole, in which
color, too, plays as significant a part as it
does in an old Japanese wood block print.
Second; because, as before stated, build-
ings perform their highest function in
relation to human life within and the nat-
ural efflorescence without ; and to develop
and’ maintain the harmony of a _ true
chord between them making of the build-
ing in this sense a sure foil for life, broad
simple surfaces and highly conventional-
ized forms are inevitable. These ideals
take the buildings out of school and
marry them to the ground; make them
intimate expressions or revelations of the
exteriors; individualize them regardless
of preconceived notions of style. I have
tried to make their grammar perfect in
its way and to give their forms and pro-
portions an integrity that will bear study,
although few of them can be _ intelli-
gently studied apart from their environ-
ment. So, what might be termed the
democratic character of the exteriors is
their first undefined offence—the lack,
wholly, of what the professional critic
would deem architecture; in fact, most
of the critic’s architecture has*been left
out.

There is always a synthetic basis for
the features of the various structures,
and consequently a constantly accumu-
lating residue of formulae, which be-
comes more and more useful; but I do
not pretend to say that the perception or
conception of them was not at first intui-
tive, or that those that lie yet beyond will
not be grasped in the same intuitive way ;
but, after all, architecture is a scientific
art, and the thinking basis will ever be
for the architect his surety, the final
court in which his imagination sifts his
feelings:

The few draughtsmen so far associ-
ated with this work have been taken
into the draughting room, in every case
almost wholly unformed, many of them

164

with no particular previous training,
and patiently nursed for years in the
atmosphere of the work itself, until,
saturated by intimate association, at an
impressionable age, with its motifs and
phases, they have become helpful. To
develop the sympathetic grasp of detail
that is necessary before this point is
reached has proved usually a matter of
years, with little advantage on the side
of the college-trained understudy. These
young people have found their way to
me through natural sympathy with the
work, and have become loyal assistants.
The members, so far, all told here and
elsewhere, of our little university of
fourteen years’ standing are: Marion
Mahony, a capable assistant for eleven
years; William Drummond, for seven
years; Francis Byrne, five years; Isabel
Roberts, five years; George Willis, four
years; Walter Griffin, four years; An-
drew. VWillatzen, three years; Harry
Robinson, two years; Charles E. White,
Jr., one year; Erwin Barglebaugh and
Robert Hardin, each one year; Albert
McArthur, entering.

Others have been attracted by what
seemed to them to be the novelty of the
work, staying only long enough to ac-
quire a smattering of form, then depart-
ing to sell a superficial proficiency else-

where. Still others shortly develop a
mastery of the subject, discovering that
it is all just as they would have done it,
anyway, and, chafing at the unkind fate
that forestalled them in its practice, re-
solve to blaze a trail for themselves
without further loss of time. It is urged
against the more loyal that they are sac-
rificing their individuality to that which
has dominated this work; but it is too
soon to impeach a single understudy on
this basis, for, although they will in-
evitably repeat for years the methods,
forms and habit of thought, even the
mannerisms of the present work, if
there is virtue in the principles behind
i that virtue will stay with: them
through the preliminary stages of their
own practice until their own individuali-
ties truly develop independently. I have
noticed that those who have made the
most fuss about their “individuality” in
early stages, those who took themselves

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD:

most seriously in that regard, were in-
evitably those who had least.

Many elements of Mr. Sullivan’s per-
sonality in his art—what might be called
his mannerisms—naturally enough clung
to my work in the early years, and may
be readily traced by the casual observer ;
but for me one real proof of the virtue
inherent in this work will lie in the
fact that some of the young men and
women who have given themselves up
to me so faithfully these past years will
some day contribute rounded individu-
alities of their own, and forms of their
own devising to the new school.

This year I assign to each a project
that has been carefully conceived in my
own mind, which he accepts as a specific
work. He follows its subsequent devel-
opment through all its phases in draw-
ing room and field, meeting with the
client himself on occasion, gaining an
all-round development impossible other-
wise, and insuring an enthusiasm and a
grasp of detail decidedly to the best in-
terest of the client. These privileges in
the hands of selfishly ambitious or over-
confident assistants would soon wreck
such a system; but I can say that among
my own boys it has already proved a
moderate success, with every prospect of
being continued as a settled policy in
future.

Nevertheless, I believe that only when
one individual forms the concept of the
various projects and also determines the
character of every detail in the sum
total, even to the size and shape of the
pieces of glass in the windows, the ar-
rangement and profile of the most in-
significant of the architectural members,
will that unity be secured which is the
soul of the individual work of art. This
means that fewer buildings should be
entrusted to one architect. His output
will of necessity be relatively small—
small, that is, as compared to the volume
of work turned out in any one of fifty
“successial ‘ofiees?: in America: © b be-
lieve there is no middle course worth
considering in the light of the best fu-
ture of American architecture. With no
more propriety can an architect leave
the details touching the form of his con-
cept to assistants, no matter how sym-

IN THE (CAUSE JOR VARCHITEC TURE. 165

pathetic and capable they may be, than
can a painter entrust the painting in of
the details of his picture to a pupil; for
an architect who would do individual
work must have a technique well devel-
oped and peculiar to himself, which, if
he is fertile, is still growing with his
growth. To keep everything “in place”
requires constant care and study in mat-
ters that the old-school practitioner
would scorn. to touche 22 =

As for the future—the work shall
grow more truly simple; more expres-
sive with fewer lines, fewer forms; more
articulate with less labor; more plastic;
more fluent, although more coherent;
more organic. It shall grow not only to
fit more perfectly the methods and proc-
esses that are called upon to produce it,

but shall further find whatever is lovely
or of good repute in method or process,
and idealize it with the cleanest, most
virile stroke I can imagine. As under-
standing and appreciation of life ma-
tures and deepens, this work shall
prophesy and idealize the character of
the individual it is fashioned to serve
more intimately, no matter how inex-
pensive the result must finally be. It
shall become in its atmosphere as pure
and elevating in its humble way as the
trees and flowers are in their perfectly
appointed way, for only so can archi-
tecture be worthy its high rank as a fine
art, or the architect discharge the obli-
gation he assumes to the public—imposed
upon him by the nature of his own pro-
fession.
Frank Lloyd Wright.

EXHIBIT OF FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT AT THE CHICAGO ARCHITECTURAL CLUB, 1908.

THE “ARCEITECTUORAL hECORD,

Buffalo, N. Y. THE LARKIN BUILDING.

The Larkin Building is one of a large group of factory buildings situated in the factory
district of Buffalo. It was built to house the commercial engine of the Larkin Company in
light, wholesome, well-ventilated quarters. The smoke, noise and dirt incident to the locality
made it imperative that all exterior surfaces be self cleaning and the interior be created
independently of this environment. The building is a simple working out of certain utilitarian
conditions, its exterior a simple cliff of brick whose only ‘“‘ornamental” feature is the ex-
terior expression of the central aisle, fashioned by means of the sculptured piers at either
end of the main block. The machinery of the various appurtenance systems, pipe shafts in-
cidental thereto, the heating and ventilating air in-takes, and the stairways which serve also
as fire escapes, are quartered in plan and placed outside the main building at the four outer
corners, so that the entire area might be free for working purposes. These stair chambers
are top-lighted. The interior of the main pbuilding thus forms a single large room in which
the main floors are galleries open to a large central court, which is also lighted from abuve.
All the windows of the various stories or ‘‘galleries’’ are seven feet above the floor, the
space beneath being utilized for steel filing cabinets. The window sash are double, and the
building practically sealed to dirt, odor and noise, fresh air being taken high above the ground
in shafts extending above the roof surfaces. The interior is executed throughout in vitreous,

IN THE CAUSE OF ARCHITECTURE. 167

Buffalo, N. Y. THE LARKIN BUILDING.

cream-colored brick, with floor and trimmings of ‘‘magnesite’’ of the same color. The various
features of this trim were all formed within the building itself by means of simple wooden
molds, in most cases being worked directly in place. So the decorative forms were necessarily
simple, particularly so as this material becomes very hot while setting and expands slightly
in the process. The furnishings and fittings are all of steel and were designed with the
structure. The entrance vestibules, from either street and the main lobby, together with the
toilet accommodations and rest rooms for employees, are all located in an annex which inter-
cepts the light from the main office as little as possible. The fifth floor is given to a
restaurant for employees, with conservatories in mezzanines over kitchen and bakery at either
end, opening in turn to the main roof, all of which together constitutes the only recreation
ground available for employees. The structure, which is completely fireproof, together with
its modern heating, ventilating and appurtenance system, but exclusive of metal fixtures and
furnishings, cost but little more than the average high class fireproof factory building—18 cts.
per cubic foot. Here again most of the critic’s “‘architecture”’ has been left out. Therefore
the work may have the same claim to consideration as a ‘work of art’? as an ocean liner, a
locomotive or a battleship.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD:

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LARKIN BUILDING—OFFICERS’ DESKS—FLOOR OF MAIN COURT..
Buffalo, N. Y.

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LARKIN BUILDING—CENTRAL COURT.

Buffalo, N. Y.

AE) ARGHITBCTOURAL “KECORD.

LARKIN BUILDING—METAL FURNITURE CLOSED TO ADMIT OF EASY CLEANING.

Buffalo, N. Y. LARKIN BUILDING—METAL FURNITURE READY FOR USE.

171

IN THE CAUSE. OF -ARCHITECTORE.

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LARKIN BUILDING—MAIN FLOOR PLAN.

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173

IN THE CAUSE 4OP “ARCHITECTURE.

THE LARKIN BUILDING—HOUSING AN INDUSTRY.

Buffalo, N.

7A THE ARCHITEC OURAL RECORD,

Springfield, I11. HOUSE OF MRS. S. L. DANA,
General exterior view shown above. Interior of gallery, library beneath.
A house designed to accommodate the art collection of its owner and for entertaining exten-

sively, somewhat elaborately worked out in detail. Fixtures and furnishings designed
with the structure.

IN THE:-CAUSE OF ARCHITECTURE. 175

DANA HOUSE—DETAIL OF MAIN ENTRANCE, SHOWING VISTA INTO LIVING HALL.

UE ARCHITECTURAL. RECORD:

DANA HOUSE—GENERAL VIEW FROM CORNER.

HOUSE—FIREPLACE ALCOVE AT END OF GALLERY. BALCONY ABOVE.

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THe ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

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LNG THE CAUSE VOR ARCHIT BOLURE.

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THE ARCATT BCLURAL* RECORD:

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IN THE CAUSE Or -4nCmi tl PCLORE.

B. HARLEY BRADLEY

HOUSE—PLASTERED EXTERIOR.

B. HARLEY BRADLEY HOUSE—LIVING ROOM FIREPLACE.

181

DHE ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

TIMBER EXTERIOR.

DINING ROOM OF BRADLEY HOUSE.

183

THE CAUSE” OF «ARCHITECTURE.

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iN Te eCAUSE. OP ARCHITECTURE: 185

Oak Park, Ill. THOMAS HOUSBH.

Basement entirely above ground. Ground floor entrance to living rooms on first floor,
bed rooms above.

ARTHUR HEURTLEY HOUSE.

Same type as Thomas House, with living rooms, kitchen and family bed rooms on main floor.
Two guest rooms and bath, children’s playroom and servants’ room on ground floor.

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IN “THE (CAUSE: OF “ARCHITECTURE. 187

MRS. E. L. MARTIN’S HOUSE.
Oak Park, IIl.

A plastered house. The horizontal members utilized as protections for the plastered walls.
The eaves, plastic in form, suited to the method of construction.

F. F. TOMEK HOUSE—SHOWING CANTILEVER ROOF OVER TERRACES.

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IN THE CAUSE OF ARCHITECTURE.

MRS. E. L. MARTIN’S HOUSE.

Oak Park, Ill.
Showing porch managed as a semi-detached pavilion.

A practical solution

of the “‘porch problem.’’

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IN THE CAUSE. OF. ARCHITECTURE. 19!

Detail of exterior of assembly room.

THE HILLSIDE HOME SCHOOL—SANDSTONE AND SOLID OAK TIMBER CONSTRUCTION.
Hillside, Wis.

THE “ARCHITEC TURAL RECORD.

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MR. WALTER

MR. CHARLES S. ROSS’ SUMMER COTTAGE.
Delavan, Wis.

INC SEE ACAUSE Or. ARG Id 2 OP URE.

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SUMMER COTTAGE—MRS. GEO. HE. GERTS.

Birch Brook, Mich.

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IN THE CAUSE OF ARCHITECTURE. 195

MR. W. W. WILLITS’ HOUSE—DETAIL.

Highland Park, III. MR. W. W. WILLITS’ HOUSE.
Living rooms within the terrace. View from south.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD:

MRS. HELEN W. HUSSER, BUENA PARK, CHICAGO.

S. M. B. Hunt House, La Grange, Il]. Plan and two views of a typical, moderate cost house
of the ordinary basement and two-story type with plastered exterior and undressed wood trim.
The main floor is treated as a single room with separate working department, and has been
reduced to the simplest terms consistent with reasonable comfort and privacy. The house
has a trunk room opening from the stair landing—four bed rooms and bath on the second
story, store room and laundry in basement. Total cost about $6,000.00 complete.

Ss. M. B. HUNT HOUSE—FIRST FLOOR PLAN.
La Grange, III.

IN; THE CAUSE OF “ARCHITECTURE. 197

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La Grange, II1.

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D. D. MARTIN HOUSE—PLAN.
Buffalo, N. Y.

TOE ARCHITECTURAL KECORD:

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IN THE CAUSE OP ARCHITECTURE, 201

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D. D. MARTIN HOUSE—HEAT AND LIGHT UNIT.

Reference to the general plan of the Martin house will show certain free standing groups
of piers, of which the above is an illustration. In the central chamber formed by the piers
the radiators are located, and the lighting fixtures are concentrated upon the piers themselves.
Bookcases swinging outward are placed below between the piers; the open spaces above are
utilized as cabinets, and from these the heat passes into the rooms. Fresh air is let into the
central chamber through openings between the piers and the bookcases. The radiators and
the appurtenance systems are thus made an artistic feature of the architecture.

(See page 45.) The Martin house is fireproof, the walls are of brick, floors of reinforced
concrete overlaid with ceramic mosaic, roofs tiled. -The vitreous brick used in the exterior
walls is worked with bronzed joints into the walls and piers of the interior. The brick on
these interior surfaces is used in a decorative sense as a mosaic. The woodwork throughout is
of fumed white oak. A pergola connects the house with a@ conservatory, which in turn is con-
nected by means of a covered way with the stable.

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Buffalo, N. Y.

IN (THE CAUSE OR VAROAIEECTORE, 205

Buffalo, N. Y. ri D. D. MARTIN HOUSE.
Detail of library, bay and terrace.

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IN THE CACGSE -OF ARCHITECTORE.

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Pergola and conservatory and entrance.

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BROWNE’S BOOK STORE—DETAIL OF INTERIOR.

Fine Arts Building, Chicago.

IN “THE CAUSE: OP ARCHITEC

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Park, Ill. OFFICE*OF MR. FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT
An alcove in the drafting room.

enclosed by brick walls.

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THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,
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Oak Park, Ill.

IN: PAE CAUSE OF “ARCHITECTURE: 211

STUDY FOR DINING ROOM OF THE DANA HOUSE.

Springfield, Il.

To avoid distortion in rendering, the side wall has been shown cut away. The decorative
frieze around the room is treated with the Shumac, Golden Rod and Purple Aster that
characterize our roadsides im September.

RECORD.

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INEXPENSIVE CONCRETE HOUSE DESIGNED FOR THE LADIES’ HOME JOURNAL—
PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION SAME AS IN BUILDING FOR UNITY CHURCH.

BUILDING FOR UNITY CHURCH IN PROCESS OF CONSTRUCTION.
Oak Park, III.

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THE CAUSE OF ARCHITECTURE.

MR. W. S. GERTS’ HOUSE.

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Racine, Wis.

THE THOMAS P. HARDY HOUSE.

Situated on the bank of Lake Michigan. The street front is opposite to the view here

217

given.

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

ELIZABETH STONE HOUSE.
Glencoe, Ill.

HOUSE FOR MR. B. J. WESTCOTT.
Springfield, Ohio.

A simple treatment of the same problem as the Coonley house at Riverside, Ill. Living room
at center; dining room on one side and sleeping rooms on the other; service wing
extending from the rear of the living room.

IN: THE “CAUSE “OF “ARCHITECTURE. 219

RESIDENCE OF MR. A. COONLEY.
Riverside, TIll.

A one-story house designed for the prairie, but with the basement entirely above ground,
similar to Thomas, Heurtley and Tomek houses. All rooms, except entrance hall and play
room, are on one floor. Hach separate function in the house is treated for and by itself, with
light and air on three sides, and grouped together as a harmonious whole. The living room is
the pivot of the arrangement, with entrance, play room and terraces below, level with the
ground, forming the main unit of the design. The dining room forms another unit. The
kitchen and servants’ quarters are in an independent wing. Family sleeping rooms form still
another unit, and the guest rooms a pendant wing. Stable and gardener’s cottage are grouped
together and informally connected by a covered way which terminates in the gardener’s
verandah. An arbor crosses the garden to the rear, terminating in the service entrance.
The stables, stable yards and gardens are enclosed by plastered walls.

ILL.

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INS ie CAUSE OP ARCHTERC TUieE. 221

“FLOWER IN THE CRANNIED WALL.”
A DECORATIVE FIGURE IN CREAM WHITE TERRA COTTA, DESIGNED FOR THE HALL-
WAY OF THE DANA HOUSE.

Richard W. Bock, Sculptor.

Barnett, Haynes & Barnett, Architects.

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Michigan Ave., Chicago.

An Intimate Auditorium

The Interior of the New Stuyvesant Theatre in New York

New York has not been very fortun-
nate in the appearance of its theatres.
Their design has not, as a rule, been
confined to the better half of the archi-
tectural profession, and a visit to the
majority of metropolitan play houses is
a positive distress to a man whose mood
is somewhat influenced by the architec-
tural interest of his surroundings. With
one or two exceptions they are wholly
lacking in architectural substance. A
number of them have been decorated
with more or less propriety and taste;
but scarcely any serious and _ sincere
attempt has yet been made to convert a
theatrical auditorium, as it emerges
from the hands of the builder, into a
beautiful and appropriate architectural
interior.

The writer was, consequently, filled
with pleasant anticipations when the
auditorium of Mr. David Belasco’s new
Stuyvesant Theatre was proclaimed to
be much the most beautiful in New
York. Almost everybody present at its
introduction to the public was enthu-
Siastic in its approval. People talked
much about the warmth and cosiness of
this interior, of its subdued lights, its
pleasant tones and its harmonious deco-
rations. A fair sample of this ap-
proval appeared in “Collier’s Weekly,”
whose dramatic critic, Mr. Arthur
Ruhl, particularly liked the © shal-
low auditorium, the “lights veiled in
tinted glass, whose color is borrowed
from the decorations against which they
are placed; the soothing color scheme
in which the whole interior is floated—
amber, golden brown, dusty gray, orange
and faded green blues.” And Mr. Ruhl
declares that the Stuyvesant Theatre
realizes more perfectly than it had ever

been realized before in New York
the. “dream” of a satisfactory play
house.

An emphatic critical statement of this
kind at once suggests an inquiry as to
the character and appearance in general

of a satisfactory play house, and the
designers of the new Stuyvesant audi-
torium have not left us in any doubt as
to their idea of what the interior of a
theatre ought to be. It appears that
they were not trying to make a play
house at all, in any sense, which would
distinguish a theatre from a private
dwelling. The Stuyvesant Theatre is
“not a mere auditorium,” they explain
in their official description, ‘‘a space in
which a number of unrelated human
units should be gathered by the mere
chance that each had paid the price of
a ticket of admission; but a living room
in a high sense of that sometimes com-
monplace phrase—a room wrapped in
the atmospheric intimacy of which the
spectator would feel not so much that
he was in a public place, as in a private
house to which he had been personally
invited.” According to this announce-
ment, Mr. David Belasco is, as it were,
at home in the Stuyvesant Theatre. A
card of invitation is issued each morn-
ing in the newspapers to everybody liv-
ing in New York, Brooklyn, Long
Island City, Jersey City, Hoboken and
the remotest suburbs which invites them
all, at a small expense, to visit him that
evening in the living room of the Stuy-
vesant Theatre—the word living room
being understood to mean a very high
sense of that sometimes commonplace
phrase. Then Mr. Belasco will greet
them, wrap them in a transparent veil of
atmospheric intimacy and shield them
from the vulgar publicity of a mere
auditorium.

One night last winter I decided to ac-
cept Mr. Belasco’s invitation, even
though I were obliged to pay two dol-
lars and a half for the pleasure of an
introduction into the living room of my
host. Neither did I regret the expense.
I was not, indeed, received personally
by Mr. Belasco in the living room of
the theatre, but I was greeted on every
side by the most salient evidences of

224

my host’s personality. Neither the play,
the performance nor the apartment could
be attributed to any other manager.
There was no trace of Mr. Frohman
about the interior domestic arrange-
ments, nor of Mr. Savage, nor of Mr.
Erlanger. The atmosphere belonged

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

I, too, was helping to make the interior
of the Stuyvesant Theatre a living room
in the highest sense of that sometimes
commonplace phrase. Mr. Belasco was
furnishing the room, and I was help-
ing to furnish the living. The room,
that. is, did not become a living room

STUYVESANT THEATRE AUDITORIUM—VIEW FROM THE STAGE.

West 44th St., New York.

emphatically and inexorably to Mr. Be-
lasco; but it occurred to me almost in
the same breath that, intimate though
it was, the atmosphere did not belong

exclusively to him. I realized that 1 was
in a small way contributing to the suc-
cess of this charming domestic scene.

Showing Decorations by Everett Shinn.

until I and a few other human and sub-
urban units had taken our seats in the
dim domestic light; but once we had
arrived, the propriety of the phrase
transcended all commonplaces. The
living which Mr. Belasco was making
out of the room was more than domes-

AN INTIMATE AUDITORIUM.

tic,
It was, in a word, theatrical.

As I sat in my chair that night, en-
joying Mr. Belasco’s hospitality, I could
not but marvel at the inevitability of this
peculiar manifestation of theatrical do-

It was regal. It was melodramatic.

mesticity. My host had been predes-
tined from the cradle to build a theatre
which was not to look like what it was,
but which was to seem to be precisely
what it was not; and he was predestined
also to be eminently successful in this
task. The erection of such a play house
may be figured as the symbolic expres-
sion of his theatrical career. For many
years he had been writing and produc-
ing plays, which, however different they
were in source and subject, were all
stamped by one common characteristic
—an utter lack of reality and sincerity.
These plays did not merely belong to
the theatre. They belonged to nothing
but the theatre. He has been the master
mechanic of the contemporary American
stage; and he has become supremely
clever in the difficult art of working
powerfully on the feelings of his audi-
ences. No doubt he could not be so
successful in working up the feelings of
other people, unless he had first taken
the precaution of pumping up his own
feelings. I can almost imagine Mr.
Belasco himself weeping over the inci-
dents in his plays, which are carefully
calculated to make his guests weep, just
as a drunkard will weep over his fan-
cied wrongs or sweat in the enuncia-
tion of his proud convictions. But he
remains none the less a theatrical car-
penter and painter, who momentarily
confuses his powders and paints with
flesh and blood. Upon his stage nothing
is ever said or done except for theatrical
effect. Mr. Belasco is the great pur-
veyor of a refined version of the yellow
drama; and when he came to provide
the yellow drama with a habitation, it
was inevitable that he should build some
such theatre as the Stuyvesant.

No doubt some of my readers will fail
to follow the connection between the yel-
low drama and a domesticated theatre.
They will rather infer that the proper
habitation of the yellow drama would
be a yellow theatre—a theatre such as
Mr. Hammerstein builds, overloaded

225

with flamboyant decorations and fairly
blushing at the cheapness of its own
gilded extravagance. But this inference
would be a palpable mistake. A yellow
theatre would, it is true, be a candid
and sincere expression of the yellow
drama; but the one thing that the yel-
low playwright and manager must nec-
essarily avoid is candor and _ sincerity
of any kind. He cannot afford to give
himself away. He and all his creations
must always pretend to be something
which really they are not. Mr. Belasco
has traveled far beyond the melodra-
matic innocence of painting his villain
black, or of expressing violent emotion
in big type; and in the same way he has
traveled far beyond the innocence ot
confessing that a theatre ought to be a
theatre... lt must: not be 2 theatre, It
must rather be a private house, because
if it were frankly a theatre he would be
missing the kind of an opportunity of
which he was born to take advantage—
an opportunity of fooling his audience.
So he announces in his programme that
his auditorium is a living room; and he
has made it look as much like a living
room as he can—which means, of course,
that it would be a peculiarly distressing
place for the residence of a person of
taste.

I am aware that very few units of
American humanity will share this opin-
ion. Mr. Belasco was born not only to
fool himself and other people, but to
fool them most successfully. His audi-
torium is precisely the kind of room
which the ordinary human tnit would
take to be a most artistic living room,
just as the ordinary human unit takes
the machine-made effects of his plays
for manifestations of genuine feeling.
I have so often seen his audiences shud-
der or weep over some theatrical tour
de force which, to the judicious, could
only be profoundly irritating, and in
the same way his audiences are plainly
delighted with his dim lights, his
dusty grays and his faded green blues.
But this, of course, is merely to admit
what has already been most emphati-
cally asserted. Mr. Belasco knows his
business. He is pastmaster in the art
of theatrical fakery, and it is precisely
because he is so successful that his au-

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

DECORATIVE FRIEZE

ditorium becomes a living room in the
highest sense of that sometimes com-
monplace phrase. in these hard times
we must all envy a man such a bewitch-
ine room! in’ which: to. live: To the
senses it may seem to be painted in dusty

grays and faded green blues; but to
the mind’s eye it will be plastered inches
thick with the richest gold.

The Stuyvesant Uheatre is, then,
about as far as possible from fulfilling
the “dream” of a Satisfactory play
house. It belongs to the numerous
group of American architectural hy-
brid. -As a domesticated theatre it
must take its place beside the villas
which look like palaces, the living
rooms which look like banquet halls,
and the libraries which look like mauso-
leums. As long as such a confusion of
ideas is permitted we shall never have
satisfactory play houses. A_ theatre
must, be first of all, a theatre. It must
be precisely what Mr. Belasco has
sought to avoid. It must frankly con-
fess and express the fact that it is an
auditorium, in which anybody can sit
who has the money to buy a ticket, and
which should be as different in appear-
ance from a living room as it is in func-
tion. Nobody lives in a theatre except
managers and actors, and they only in
the sense that a business man lives in
his office. Theatres are public places
in which people go to be amused, and

it should be designed and decorated
with this condition and function con-
stantly in mind.

The Stuyvesant interior has been elab-
orately decorated from a false and de-
ceptive standpoint, and it betrays not
the slightest evidence of sincere and ap-
propriate architectural design. The
architecture of the room is concealed as
much as possible behind a mask of dim
lights, of color schemes and of uphol-
stery; but wherever it shows through it
is as frivolous and trivial in its interior
as it is in its exterior. The structure,
the shape, the fundamental proportions
and the salient lines of the room have
been totally ignored in its treatment.
The architectural detail is either com-
monplace or vulgar. The whole interior
is as much of a stage setting as are any
of the rooms at which the spectators
look across the footlights; but it is a
stage setting which is inappropriate for
its purpose. The convention which
leads architects to pitch the decorative
scheme of a theatre or a ball room in a
high key is ‘entirely justihable. ‘The
effect of such a room should be bright
and gay. It should be abundantly
lighted, and its walls should be so deco-
rated as to constitute an effective back-
ground for handsome gowns. The
Stuyvesant interior is so dimly lighted
that one can scarcely recognize a friend
across the room, and one cannot read

INTIMATE AUDITORIUM.

227

the programme without a strain upon
the eyes. Its dusty grays and faded
green blues make all gowns look very
much alike. It is too dimly lighted even
for a living room, except, perhaps, a
living room, if there are any such,
which is used exclusively for téte-a
tétes. A room as dimly lighted as this
should be either a church or a tomb;
and Mr. Belasco would do well to
change the official description of the
Stuyvesant interior and call it a temple
of theatrical art.

Be it understood that the Stuyvesant
interior may be an inappropriate and
pretentious sham, and yet may still have
certain attractive qualities. It may be
compared to a woman, whose languish-
ing coquetries are both irritating and
obnoxious, without for that reason be-
ing wholly ineffective. It is undoubtedly
possessed of a specious charm, which
prevails with the majority of human
units, partly because it is specious,
and partly because it is novel. Inas-
much as nine New York~theatres out
of ten expose in the most brazen way
charms which might better be con-
cealed, it is not surprising that people
confuse the coquettish prudery of the
Stuyvesant interior with the modesty of
virtue. Moreover, it should be added
that the lady wears upon her person
certain gems, whose value is not
in the least counterfeit. Mr. Everett

PROSCENIUM ARCH IN THE STUYVESANT THEATRE.

Shinn’s look as if they

decorations
would be charming, provided they could

be sufficiently seen; and it is very
much to be hoped that this painter will
have a chance, with the assistance of
some sympathetic and intelligent archi-
tect, to continue this kind of work in
living rooms which are not temples of
theatrical art. But Mr. Shinn’s pretty
adornments do not prevent the lady
from being a fraud; and like all frauds,
she will in the long run prove to be
tedious. Mr. Belasco, as usual, has
been too clever and too ingenious in his
theatrical mechanics. If he had at-
tempted to carry off his pretence of a
domesticated theatre with a smaller pa-
rade of colored lights and dusty grays
and faded blues it might have been al-
lowed to pass. The old Lyceum Theatre
on Fourth avenue, for instance was
decorated from the same erroneous
point of view; but it was not tedious or
irritating, because the scheme of deco-
ration and lighting was handled with-
out affectation and exaggeration. But
when the Stuyvesant interior loses its
novelty it will lose most of its charm,
even for the ordinary human unit; and
while this fact will not prevent it from
being a living room in the highest sense
of that sometimes commonplace phrase,
it may at least prevent it from being
considered a temple of any kind of art.
Arthur David.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

A PORTION OF THE DESIGN FOR MONTGOMERY, WARD & CO.”"S NEW WAREHOUSE,
NOW NEARING COMPLETION.
Chicago, Ill. Schmidt, Garden & Martin, Architects.
The longest side of this building is over 800 feet in length.

NOTES & COMMENTS

The engineers and fire

THE experts who have ex-
amined the Parker

PARKER Building in New York,
BUILDING the scene of the latest
FIRE fatal fire, have com-

pleted their report to

the Fire and Building
Departments and other organizations. It
appears that the building was of the num-
erous class called by courtesy ‘‘fireproof.’’
These ‘structures are, no doubt, non-com-
bustible, but offer little protection to their
contents and are damageable all the way
from 5 per cent. to 90 per cent. of their cost
value. Such buildings form a class abso-—
lutely distinct and different from the big
skyscrapers of New York and the really fire-
proof buildings of the first class.

Its outer walls are of stone, brick and
terra cotta, its skeleton of cast-iron columns
and steel beams and the floor filling of fire-
proof hollow tile. But the steel beams and
girders were unprotected by tile in their
most vulnerable parts, the lower flanges;
the elevator shafts and stairways opened
into every story; iron shutters of an inferior
order protected only some of the windows;
the water supply permitted the firemen to
reach to only the fifth floor. The building
was put up for light office purposes, but was
occupied as’ a manufacturing plant and
loaded with machinery and filled with com-
bustible materials; most of the partitions
were built upon the wooden sleepers in the
concrete filling of the floors. The fire vir-
tually had to burn itself out unchecked.. Yet
it was not a total collapse and, its materials
being incombustible, it was essentially a
fire of the contents and it was kept within
the building in which it originated. With
the water pressure as it was, had that fire
been in some of the old-fashioned, all-ex—
posed steel and wooden-joisted buildings it
might have been the beginning of a colossal
conflagration.

Some alarmists see in this fire a danger
to the great skyscrapers of our larger cities.
Where any of these have been built by
architects and engineers not competent to
do really fireproof work and in cities whose
building codes permit such unscientific put-
ting together of however good materials,

there that danger lurks; but where those tall
buildings are constructed as are the best in
New York, with every particle of the steel
frame thoroughly protected from fire by hol-
low tile or other adequate protection, and
where the stories are isolated one from the
other by enclosed elevator and stair shafts,
and where the external openings are pro-
tected by metal sash and wire glass, there
exists not the slightest danger of any such
disastrous fire, for, whatever the contents
of the building, fire originating upon any
one story cannot possibly extend beyond that
floor. A well-built thirty-story skyscraper
is as safe against fire as would be thirty one-
story absolutely fireproof buildings in a row.

But this lesson should not be without its
effects. It should certainly tend to lessen
the opposition that exists in most of our
cities against ‘more stringent building regu-
lations and their strictest enforcement. If left
to their own devices there are probably as
many people willing, to-day, to exercise the
“economies” practiced in the Parker Build-
ing as there were at the time it was built
ten years ago. It is imperative that the
cities should compel really fireproof con-
struction, and further that in the second
class and in old buildings similar to the
Parker adequate provision should be made
in the way of enclosing shafts and protect-—
ing windows and supplying ‘sufficient water,
hose and alarms to make the recurrence of
such a calamity impossible under ordinary

conditions.
The partial destruc-
tion of this so-called
MUNICIPAL fireproof building in New
York, and the complete
BoeTON annihilation of its con-
NECESSARY tents, again centre at-

tention upon the fact

that people are con-
stantly being misled as to the true nature
of the buildings they occupy. The construc-
tional defect in the Parker Building was not
apparently one of the actual safety of the
skeleton, the quality and quantity of metal
composing its sections—but rather of the
putting together and the protection against
fire of those members. The inadequate fire
protection of its framing alone should have

THE: ARCHITECTURAL. RECORD.

ONE OF CHICAGO’S NEWEST APARTMENT HOUSES ON LAKE SHORE DRIVE.
Chicago, Ill. Marshall & Fox, Architects.

NOTES .. AND

excluded it from the class of commercial
structures that can fairly be rated as fire-
proof. It is in the elastic interpretation of
the word “fireproof” that a serious danger
lurks for the tenant. We have seen steel-
beamed, wood-joisted construction called
“fireproof”; likewise wood framed sheds cov-
ered with galvanized iron. And it is common
for owners of buildings to obtain tenants
under these false pretenses, criminal mis—
representations. The mere fact that hollow
tile or concrete is used for the floor arches,
leaving steel beams and girders and struc-
tural parts exposed, does not constitute fire-
proof construction.

It is most necessary that our civic authori-
ties should be urged to take some action
that the building departments issue a license
to and virtually label all buildings of first-
class construction, that is, those in which
all the elements of fireproof construction
have been incorporated, buildings deemed
secure by those authorities. Buildings of
only semi-public nature should also be
labeled and classified. And it should be
made a heavily punishable offense for any
owner or agent to term his building and ad-
vertise it for public occupancy as belonging to
a class to which it has not been certified by
the building department. That would effect—
ually put a stop to “constructive lying’ and
make owners, sail under their true colors,
and, incidentally, add to public safety and
a real appreciation of what is and what is
not ‘‘fireproof’” construction.

It seems odd that
there should bea battle

MODERN of the styles in land-
scape gardening, and

Tenpecar’ that the hands of the
GARDENING * gentle horticulturists

should yearn to tear

each other’s eyes. But,
after -all, such a ‘conflict is; not, only a
corollary of the battle of the styles of archi-
tecture. It is a necessity of the case, so
long as the adjectives ‘classic’ and “ro-
mantic’ continue to connote radical differ-
ences, as we see that they do. The ‘formal
garden” and the “jardin anglais’? respond to
differences which assert themselves in every
mode of artistic expression, differences
personal and differences ‘‘ethnic’’? which
transcend European civilization, differences

*The Art of Landscape Gardening. By Humphry
Repton, Esq. Including his ‘‘Sketches and Hints
on Landscape Gardening,’’ and ‘‘Theory and Prac-
tice of Landscape Gardening.’’ Edited by John
Nolen, A. M., Member of the American Society of
Landscape Architects. Boston and New York:
Houghton, Mifflin and Company. MDCCCCVII.

COMMENTS. 231
between the men who demand that art shall
simulate nature and the men who demand
that nature shall submit to art. In which
category, by the way, should we place
Japanese gardening? It is at once so in-
tensely naturalistic and so intensely artificial,
and it is yet a more popular art than any
European mode of gardening. Of what other
army in the world could it be told that a
brigade with a week’s enforced idleness on
its hands has set itself to reproduce a “and-
Scape garden” of its own country in a
strange land? Yet this is what a Japanese
brigade is reported to have done on a Man-
churian plain, a new and original version of
“super flumina Babylonis.”

Repton (1752-1818) was by no means a
pioneer in the informal garden. In truth,
the natural romanticism of which Gothic
architecture is in its kind the most impres-
Sive expression, died almost equally hard in
France and in England. Nobody who studies
the great French chateaux of the Loire can
help seeing that the Italianization, or
Classicization, was imposed upon them by
royal caprice, and that the root of the
matter is almost always, in the great
chateaux, the vernacular architecture of
craftsmanship, not ‘the imported and im-
posed architecture of formula. In England
the same resistance occurred, and was much
more ‘stubborn, thanks to the fact that no
Tudor monarch took such an interest in
architecture as did Francis I. His con-
temporary, Henry VIII., had much mor? im-—
portant things to think about, to wit, what
may be called his own ‘modus vivendi,”’
and let English architecture go on its ‘own
picturesque degeneration with a minimum
official interference in the direction of Itali-
anization, and with that little so ill-as-
similated or incorporated that the Jacobean
architecture, contemporary with an almost
completely classicized Ludovican architect-
ure in France remained incorrigibly roman-
tic, or, in the old English ‘sense of the word,
“humorous.” Our Repton’s distinction be-
tween Gothic and classic is incomplete, when
he calls the one vertical and the other hori-
zontal. But his specific characterization is
unimpeachable when he says of “the large
houses built in Queen Elizabeth’s reign,
where Grecian columns are introduced’’:—
“nevertheless, we always consider them as
Gothic buildings.” It is curious to look
Over again, in this sense, perhaps. the
earliest English treatise on landscape
gardening, no other than Bacon’s essay “Of
Gardens.’”’ Bacon was the child of his age,
and his age was the Renaissance. He set
more store by the Latin of his own works,
which is forgotten, than by the English,

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234

which bids fair to be remembered as long as
anything in the language is remembered.
The revival of learning and the consequences
in its train were the great facts of the age,
and there is no reason to doubt that Bacon,
so far as he had any architectural predilec-
tions, entirely approved of the tendency to
the “revived classic’ in that art also. But
the ideal mansion that Bacon sketched in
words in his essay ‘“‘On Building,’ though
he says nothing in it about “style,” was a
piece of Elizabethan which, even in its
two loggias,, we should nevertheless as Rep-
ton has it, “consider as a Gothic build-
ing.” And when Bacon came to lay out his
ideal garden of thirty acres, with six acres
out of the thirty devoted to the “heath or
desert,’’ which is to say wilderness, it is as
clear that what he had in his mind was the
‘jardin anglais,’’ the “informal garden.”
Not that Repton was a bigoted “infor-
malist.”” He takes pains to assure us in
words that he was not. He takes still more
and more successful pains to give us that
assurance in his works. His words are: “I
do not profess to follow either Le Notre or
Brown, but, selecting beauties from the style
of each, to adopt so much of the grandeur
of the former as may accord with a palace,
and so much of the grace of the latter as
may call forth the charms of natural land-
scape.” That would be a first rate motto
for a modern landscape gardener and would
tend to inspire confidence among his intel-
ligent clients. Especially if they knew that
“Brown” was that ‘Capability’ Brown
(1715-1783) who, in the middle of the eigh-
teenth century, was the favorite and fash-
ionable maker of English ‘places’ for the
British nobility and gentry. Repton was
his successor and exceeded him in fashion-—
ableness, insomuch that, though he never
received any public or royal orders, his pres-
ent editor, Mr. Nolen, estimates his pro-
fessional opportunities as not inferior to
those of Le Nd6tre himself. That is a
great deal to say when one recalls Versailles
alone. But Repton, in the great ‘‘seats’” of
the English nobility dealt with as large ex-
panses, and was little more limited in the
article of expense. ‘Two hundred “places”
of all kinds, from rural or suburban cot-
tages to great parks, attested, and some of
the greatest among them continue to at-
test, the skill with which he worked out in
land and wood and water the theories which
he sets forth in the two books, originally
sumptuous and costly and now become
costlier still by their rarity, of which the
gist is given in the single volume of mod—
erate price now under notice. It is a great
service that is thus done to the modern

THE ARCHITECTURAL. RECORD.

practitioners of landscape gardening, a term
which some of them will learn with sur-
prise owes its very origin to Repton.

The radical notion of Repton and his nat-
uralistic school is the application to land-
scape gardening of the maxim “ars celare
artem.’’ They apply it, and indeed it is ap-
plicable, with an intensity unknown in any
other art. For all other works of art ‘at
least appear as artificial, whereas it is the
highest success of the landscape gardener
to have his work pass for that of nature,
and, as Johnson ‘says about the “‘writer who
obtains his full purpose,’’ to ‘‘lose himself!in
his own lustre.” ‘The perfection of land-
scape gardening,’’ Repton lays it down, ‘‘de-
pends on a concealment of those operations
of art by which nature is embellished.”’
Clearly, this does away with the formal or,
as Repton calls it, the “‘zeometric’’ garden-
ing of which the spectator is never for a
moment suffered to forget that what he’is
admiring is art and man’s device. But
Repton by no means lays this down with-
out qualification. He has “frequently ad-
vised the most perfect symmetry in those
small flower gardens which are generally
placed in front of a greenhouse, or orangery,
in some inner part of the grounds, where,
being secluded from the general scenery, they
become a kind of episode to the great and
more conspicuous parts of the place.” ‘“Sym-
metry is also allowable, and indeed necés-
sary, at or near thefront of a regular
building; because, where that displays
correspondent parts, if the lines in contact
do not correspond, the house itself will ap-
pear twisted and awry.” Again: ‘‘There are
situations in which the ancient style of gar-
dening is very properly preserved; witness
the academic groves and classic walks ‘in
our universities; and I should doubt the taste
of any improver who could despise the con-
gruity, the utility, the order and the sym-
metry of the small garden at Trinity Col-
lege, Oxford, because the clipped hedges and
straight walks would not look well in a
picture.”

But these exceptions by no means invali-
date the rule—the rule that landscape gar-
dening should look natural and that the
work of man should appear to be the work
of nature. The fullest confession of faith
the book contains is perhaps this:

The perfection of landscape gardening consists in
the four following requisites: First, it must dis-
play the natural beauties and hide the natural de-
fects of every situation. Secondly, it should give
the appearance of extent and freedom by carefully
disguising or hiding the boundary. Thirdly, it must
studiously conceal every interference of art, how-
ever expensive, by which the scenery is improved,
making the whole appear the production of nature

only; and, fourthly, all objects of mere convenience
or comfort, if incapable of being made ornamental,

NOTES AND

or of becoming proper parts of the general scenery,
must be removed or concealed.

That will be accepted as a clear enough
creed of naturalistic or informal landscape
gardening. The greater part of the volume
is devoted to showing how the author ap-
plied it in actual ‘‘places,’ from such lordly
domains as Welbeck or Thoresby to his own
little roadside cottage in Essex. The in-
quiry is facilitated by his practice of keep-
ing a “red book” for every place with which
he was intrusted, in which he set down his
prescriptions and his reasons, illustrating
them by an ingenious device of his own,
which he called “slides,” from which, by
raising a flap, the beholder could contrast
the actual state of the place with its pro-
posed or expected state, and find the evi-
dence of things not seen. The chief interest
of the book lies in this inquiry, for the pur-
suit of which, however, it will be necessary
to resort to the book itself, since it cannot
be carried on without the help of the illustra-
tions. With that help, it will commend
itself not only to the professional landscape
gardener, but to every reader interested in
landscape gardening either on its own ac-
count or in subordination to or association
with architecture.

The report on the im-

provement of Los An-

THE geles, submitted a few
LOS ANGELES weeks ago to the mayor,
the city council and the

PLAN municipal art commis-
sion by Mr. Robinson,
was divided into three
main parts. The first contained general sug-
gestions for work in various portions of the
city; the second was devoted to four large
improvement schemes planned for the busi-
ness district; the third outlined a boulevard
system.connecting all the parks and leading
to Pasadena and the sea. The report, which
is very long, lays great stress on developing
in the Los Angeles plan more invitation to
life out-of-doors, on getting away from the
Eastern and Middle West idea in the city’s
street plotting and getting rather the effect
of a European capital. There is no copying,
but a planning to suit the superb climate,
the tourist life, and that spaciousness which
one expects to find in California, where
everything is big and generous. The im-
provement schemes which are of most inter-
est here, have to do (1) with a Union Sta-
tion and its approach. A mile long avenue,
200 feet wide, terminating in a plaza in front
of the station, is planned by Mr. Robinson.
This scheme the City Council and Chamber
of Commerce have since taken up with the

COMMENTS. 235

railroads. (2) A beautiful educational, or
“cultural’’ center, in which library and art
gallery are placed on a hill, with a fine fore-
court leading up to them. On the latter the
new auditorium and some churches face.
(83) A civic center, or grouping of public
buildings, in which court house, post office
and city hall are brought together. (4) A
park scheme around the old mission and on
the historic hillside back of it. The report
met with general approval.

It is interesting

enough to record the

NEW municipal art develop-
HAVEN’S ments in the newer
cities; but it is just a

AWAKENING little more interesting
to observe the expres-
sion of this new spirit
of American progress in the older communi-
ties. That New England is very vigorously
taking up the matter of town and city plan-
ning was shown by a recent note in this de-
partment. Among the cities named as illus-
trating the fact was New Haven, and in that
staid old town, standing for so much in early
history, the recent developments have been
very interesting. On November 29 there was
dedicated on the ‘“‘Green,’’ close to the Old
Pump, a marble fountain, provided by the
bequest of a citizen. The juxtaposition of
the old and the new utility dramatically
illustrates the change in conditions and the
rise of new urban ideals. The fountain was
designed by Professor Weir, of the Yale
school of fine arts, but it is significant, per-
haps, that he went back to Athens for his
model—to the Choragic monument of Lysi-
crates near the Acropolis. He changed it, in
making the base a little higher. The placing
of the fountain on the Green is significant
of a wish gradually formed, but now widely
shared in New Haven, that this beautiful
old town center may be made a civic center,
which in architecture shall have a harmony
and beauty commensurate with its present
arboreal picturesqueness. Ernest M. A. Ma-
chado, a New Haven architect who has since
died, made a drawing for a group of court
house, hall of records, and library, that
should have these qualities together with
appropriateness of style. The plan was
never authoritatively adopted; but now
$300,000 has been provided for a library, by
the gift of a woman loyal to New Haven;
a state law requires a safer housing of the
records, and a committee has heen appointed
to consider a new court house. Other civic
problems were pressing for artistic solution,
and—as earlier in Springfield—there rose a
man to meet the emergency and lead public

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

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238

opinion. In a strong two-page letter in the
newspapers last summer, George Dudley Sey-
mour appealed to his fellow citizens. By
popular subscription, $10,000 has since been
raised, and F. L. Olmsted and Cass Gilbert
have gone to work to make a plan for New
Haven.

The new wave of ca-
A thedral building con-
tinues in evidence, sig-
nificant and locally
momentous as each new
project must be. The
latest decision to be re-
ported is that: of the
Protestant Episcopal diocese of Nova Scotia,
to erect a cathedral in Halifax. .The plans
have been adopted and the money is reported
to be coming in quite rapidly. It is notable
that the bishop, in making his appeal, says:
“One of the chief seaports of America should,
like Liverpool and New York, be marked by
the presence of a cathedral, so that, coming
from one country to another, the first thing
to catch the eye of the traveler will be that
which speaks of the continuity of the
Church.” This is quite the spirit of ancient
ecatholicism—the spirit that built cathedrals.
The architects are Cram, Goodhue and Fer-
guson. Their task has been the designing
of a cathedral that shall cost a very definite
and modest sum—$175,000 for the chancel,
the crossing, and three bays of the nave,
which is all that will be undertaken at pres-
ent. Consequently, only the simplest mate-
rials are used, and nothing which is not es-
sential is included. The ceiling is to be
frankly of wood, stained dark; but so de-
signed that vaulting can later be substituted.
For the lower aisles and ambulatories, how-
ever, either arched vaults or slabs of ma-
sonry are to be used. The roof is to be of
slate, probably of the ‘graduated’ type,
which these architects have championed.
Throughout, the effort has been to have all
the materials honest and appropriate. The
extreme width of the building at the tran-
septs is to be eighty feet; the extreme length
255 feet, and the height of the central tower
132 feet.

CATHEDRAL
FOR
HALIFAX

Warren H. Manning,
of Boston, in an ad-
dress before the Con-
gress of Horticultur-
ists in Jamestown a
few weeks ago, had
much to say about the
advisability of securing
a comprehensive town plan. As usual, plain
good sense characterized his statements. “T
conceive it,’ he said, “to be the duty of

TOWN
PLANNING
SUGGESTIONS

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

village improvement societies and park
superintendents to direct their attention to
the preparation of such a plan rather than
to expend all their efforts and money on a
small area or other minor improvements at
haphazard, or upon general clearing-up oper-
ations, street lighting, and the like, that
should be executed by the town Officers,
through their regular appropriations.’ There
is need of emphasizing the latter point. He
continued: “‘There is now a rapid trend
toward the ideal I have outlined, not only
in cities, but in many small towns. My own
experience is that with such plans and pub-
lic interest, the whole aspect of a community
will be transformed in from five to eight
years. There must, of course, be a leader
in the movement, however, who is big
enough to grasp the whole conception and
persistent enough to hold fast against criti-
cism until it is well under way. It always
means self-sacrificing effort on the part of
the few, as does any advanced movement
for the general welfare, but the results and
the ultimate general approval of those whose
opinions are of value, will well repay this
effort. I believe it is not necessary, how-
ever, to place the work on a sentimental
ground, for almost invariably the execution
of a well considered plan leads to increases
in land values that make it a good propo-
sition.”’

In connection with
the recent exhibition of
the Architectural Club
of Pittsburg—of which
a feature was the plan
of a proposed civic cen-
ter—the Art Club and
the Pittsburg Chapter
of the American Institute of Architects
united to secure from Frederic C. Howe a
lecture on municipal art. The fact that a
lecture on this subject was called for in
Pittsburg, and that it was given by one
known as a leading authority on taxes and
municipal government, rather than as an
art enthusiast, justify some investigation as
to what was said. It turns out that Mr.
Howe really is a civic art enthusiast, and
that his address was a convincing appeal.
He is optimistic as to the future, and from
his own particular bias. He said: “In the
last half dozen years a change has taken
place in American cities, a change that is
almost revolutionary. It is so marked that
it seems to me to indicate that the American
city is going to be the best governed city in
the world. There are a good many mani-
festations of that, and I won’t say the chief
of them is the interest in art, but it is one

MUNICIPAL
ART

NOTES AND

of the manifestations. It is a great mani-
festation for this reason: there is no com-
mercial, no ulterior, no material motive that
should inspire men to take an interest in
municipal art. It must be inspired by some-
thing else. It is really awakened by a love
and interest in the city. And the best pos-
sible evidence that the American people are
taking an interest in their cities and are
going to make their cities something worth
while, is the fact that all over this land
municipal art societies have sprung up, art
commissions, and little groups of men who
grow in volume and power until they make
public opinion respond to their will.’ ‘‘De-
mocracy,’ he added further on, “is seeking
to express itself again in fine monuments
indicative of the belief of the people in them-
selves. During the great religious centuries
they sought to typify their religious beliefs
in beautiful Gothic cathedrals, their spires
running heavenward; so to-day democracy,
the democratic spirit, is going to embody its
ideals and belief in itself in fine public struc-
tures, in beautified cities, in parks and ave-
nues.’’ In telling the inevitable story of the
Cleveland Group plan, he said: “Finally,
one hard-headed Scotchman got up,’’—at the
public meeting called to consider the mat-
ter—‘and said he had thought it over, and
had figured out that it would cost about ten
cents more per head per annum for thirty or
forty years to do the thing right than it
would to do it wrong.” “I do not mean,” Mr.
Howe said, “that that arzument won the
day’; but we may be sure it had an influence.
The calculation is worth remembering.

President Robert W.
de Forest, of New

PUBLIC York’s Municipal Art
BUILDING Commission, has sug-
gested that such a com-

SITES

mission ought to have
something to say about
the location of public
structures as well as about their architect-
ural character. He enforces his argument
with various illustrations of cases in which
much greater effectiveness might easily have
been secured at the cost of some artistic
forethought, but at no added cost in money.
In this note the argument is not needed, for
to architects the suggestion speaks for it-
self and with a force which makes it
applicable to all cities as well as to
New York. Yet practical difficulties pre-
perceive at once that if an art commission
sent themselves, and one can _ perceive
at once that if an art commission be-
came entangled, as it instantly would, in
a vortex of conflicting real estate and busi-

COMMENTS. 239

ness interests, its whole usefulness would
probably be jeopardized. On the other hand,
to obtain a good—or at least, not a bad—
design for a public building inadequately
placed, is only to make the best of a poor
situation; and if the function of the com-
mission is to give us good examples of civic
art, the site of the public structure is as
vital a consideration as are its style and or-
nament. It would seem that municipal art
commissions might at least be called upon,
and even required, to advise on the location
of public structures. It is best, perhaps, that
the determination of the site should remain
with the department to which the building
will belong—police, fire, educational, council-
manic, or whatever it may be; but that the
official representatives and defenders of the
community’s public art ideals should have
as certain and respectful a hearing as do
property and purely commercial interests.
There can be no doubt that such a change
would do much to foster the grouping of
public buildings and the development of local
civic centers—both of these being results
that are desired by architects, by civic stu-
dents and social workers; and that it would
do much in an educational way, awakening
in the public a sense of the nearness and
persistent practicalness of the problems of
civic art.

Circulars have been
issued for the seventh
annual exhibition of the
Municipal Art Society
of New York, to be held,
through the courtesy of
the National Arts Club,
in their galleries, 119
East 19th Street. The exhibition will take
place from March 4 to 27 inclusive. All
exhibits must be received by February 29.
Circulars of information, tags for exhibits,
cards of admission, etc., may be had on ap-
plication to the secretary of the Municipal
Art Society of New York, 119 East 19th
Street.

The Exhibition Committee is composed of
Francis Newton, chairman; H. Van Buren
Magonigle and William Ordway Partridge.

EXHIBITION
OF MUNICIPAL
ART SOCIETY
OF NEW YORK

Some foreign ideas

FOREIGN have come to hand on
comprehensive planning

THOUGH ISON for towns. There has
TOWN been established in
PLANNING London lately the Chel-

sea Embellishment
Association, and it has
employed Professor Geddes, who has al-
ready done valuable work for Hdinburgh and

240

Dundee, to make plans for it. At this writ-
ing the plans, if yet completed, have not
been made public; but it is stated that they
express the professor’s idea that such
schemes should represent a natural and log-
ical evolution from the past and present of
the district planned for, and that economic
and social conditions should have at least as
much weight as do aesthetic. In an inter-
view with him, published in the Oxford
“Tribune,” he calls attention to what can
be done at once, by voluntary effort, to in-
crease the beauty of existing plots. He said,
for example, that “in Dundee the asphalt
near the walls around one of the elementary
school playgrounds had been broken up at
his suggestion, and a border of flowers and
shrubs put in its place. Throughout the
summer the children had not done three
pennyworth of damage to the plants, and
the appearance of the playground had been
immeasurably improved.’ The other and
more pretentious contribution to the discus-
sion is a leaflet, issued in Birmingham, by
John Nettlefold, Chairman of the Birming—
ham Housing Committee, on “Slum Reform
and Town Planning.’ “A town plan,’ says
Mr. Nettlefold, ‘‘settles the direction, width
and nature of the proposed streets, the situa-
tion of open spaces, and in some Cases din

Europe) defines the class of buildings to be

erected in particular districts.” In speaking
for narrow roadways with broad parking, on
the streets given up to laborers’ houses, he
made a novel but good point in saying that
the resulting reduction in the cost of the
street construction must tend economically,
as such streets cease to be a novelty, to re-
duce considerably the rents of the abutting
houses—less gross rent giving an equal net
return. As to advantages in having a town-
plan, he notes as one the protection of land-
owners from one another. ‘As things are
to-day, one landowner sometimes ruins his
neighbor’s estate.” But a great gain, he
thinks, is economic. “Heavy rates are con-
stantly levied for street widenings, and other
improvements, such as slum clearances and
the provision of open spaces. Under town
planning, this expenditure would be largely
avoided by the exercise of foresight.” A
careful compilation of data on this subject
seems, he says, to establish the fact that in
the last ten years, “‘not less than £30,000,000’’
have been expended for such improvements,
that would have been saved had there been
town-planning. In his own committee, he
says, 2,105 unsanitary houses have been dealt
with in the last five years. Of this number
635 had to be absolutely demolished, and
twelve acres of land transformed into open
spaces. Yet he thinks that during this period
Birmingham has perhaps done proportion-
ately rather less than other cities. The ad-
vantage of a comprehensive plan, he. re-

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

marks, is abundantly evident in the case of
a single large estate; and “the same thing
applies in a much greater degree to a whole
town, which is really only a large estate
partially developed.”

Under the above cap-
tion the Tee Square
Club of Philadelphia
publishes a large vol-
ume of 160 pages of at-
tractive half-tone plates
showing 49 competitive
designs of seven im-
portant competitions of the year that were
exhibited at the club’s galleries. The build-
ings represented are the Soldiers’ Memorial
for Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, of
which Messrs. Palmer & Hornbostel were the
successful competitors; the D., L. & W. R.R.
Station, Scranton, Pa., which was awarded
to Mr. Kenneth M. Murchison; the Union
Theological Seminary, New York City,
Messrs. Allen & Collens being the architects
selected; the State Educational Buildings,
Albany, N. Y., in which Messrs. Palmer &
Hornbostel again figure as the star per-
formers; the building for the International
Bureau of American Republics, Washington,
D. C., which Messrs. Albert Kelsey and
Paul P. Cret have been selected to execute;
the Connecticut State Library and Supreme
Court Building, Hartford, Conn., of which
the first prize went to Messrs. Donn Barber
and A. T. Hapgood; and lastly the Central
Building for the Y. M. C. A. of Philadelphia,
in which Mr. Horace Trumbauer is the suc-
cessful competitor. These drawings are re-
produced of such a size that the lettering on
plans is generally legible and the various
drawings of a design are carefully given at
the same scale, a useful procedure which is
generally neglected in publication. Carefully
edited programs giving the information
requisite to a thorough understanding and
study of the designs, precede the illustra-—
tions.

This book of the Tee Square Club’s marks
an important step in the direction of
American architectural scholastic emanci-
pation. it is =not. our” purpose “tor -con—
vey the idea that the book before us
chronicles an American Architecture, but
that the general character of the work
suggests an attempt at some sort of free-
dom of opinion and less artistic servitude
than we can recollect seeing grouped to-
gether under one cover without particular
selection—and the work all of one year and
covering a comparatively restricted area.
The volume should be for American
architects a valuable record of current
American architectural tendencies artistic
and utilitarian.

AMERICAN
COMPETITIONS

Copyright, 1908, by ‘Tue ARCHITECTURAL RECORD Company.” All rights reserved.
Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter, Post Office at New York, N Y., Act of Congress of March 3d, 1879,

VoL; XO.» INO. 4: APRIL, 1908. WHOLE No 115

cela Hint ee isin TO

THE ECOLE DES BEAUX- ARTS AND ITS INFLUENCE ON OUR
Sy ae EDUCATION
. Hamlin.

AECGHEAIBAL EXPRESSION IN A NEW MATERIAL: PRACTICAL
AND ETHICAL PROBLEMS OF DESIGN IN REINFORCED CON-
CRETE Soe acvcotcn see oe ests ee 249

Illustrated. H. Toler Booraem.
THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.......................
Illustrated. Herbert Croly.

ARCHITECTURE IN PHILADELPHIA AND A COMING CHANCE..
ell. fa | | eo ee Illustrated. Huger Elliott.
j wel o aes ca ge THE LARKIN BUILDING IN BUFFALO. .
| NS eles Illustrated. Russell Sturgis.
| Ste ge : a THE BUILDING OF THE PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION OF MIL-
| Br }- fae lit WAUKEE See cs ca cece aretatulsiaisiers aie cic Siele ae case igure 323
Illustrated.

NOTES AND COMMENTS. Illustrated..................... . 326
pent:
tural Rete a
Brownstone Prone Ak clon Boeveney A
Beginning of the Hudson’s West Bank Improve-
ment—Progress in Cleveland — Erived for Artistic
Work—Domestie Glass—The Foundations of Tall
y Oren cme ae ear ‘Improvement ’’—Baltimore’s
Advance — Improving Small Stations — University
Scholarships—A Competition for Low-Cost Dwell-
ing Houses.
ee
‘ PUBLISHED BY.
THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD CO,
President, CLINTON W. SwrET ‘Treasurer, F. W. Dop@r
areas ae W.Dresmonpd Secretary, F. T. Mier

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Architectural Record

Vol. XXIII APRIL, 1908. No. 4.

The Influence of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts
On Our Architectural Education

This article is the second of a series beginning in the issue of November, 1907, and
dealing with the influence which the Paris School of Fine Arts has exerted in the United
States. The author is Professor Hamlin, Executive Head of the School of Architecture
at Columbia University in New York. While Mr. J. Stewart Barney, author of the first
article, treats his subject from the standpoint of a practicing architect, and in its direct
influence on American architecture, the author of the present article assumes a scholastic
position which his experience as a teacher of architectural subjects and as a director of

architectural instruction qualifies him eminently to assume.
Many of our architect-readers will, no doubt, fall in with Professor Hamlin’s ideas

and sympathize with his attitude, while as many more will hold other views.
that all our readers, not only the architects, will take some measure of

We trust
interest in a

Subject the object lessons of which are ever before the public. —Editors.

It is now somewhat over fifty years”

since the late Richard M. Hunt entered
the Paris Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the first
of the long line of American students of
architecture who have sought the dis-
cipline and inspiration proffered by that
hospitable institution. For a half-cen-
tury the stream of American students
into the Ecole has continued in increas-
ing numbers, and through them the Paris
school has become a potent influence on
American architecture. Whether this
has been, on the whole, a salutary influ-
ence in the past, is so now, or will be
in the future, are questions which are
being asked with increasing frequency
and receiving divers answers from dif-
ferent sources. The first of these three
questions is chiefly historical; the sec-
ond demands a critical estimate of con-
temporary tendencies; the third is a very
practical and personal question for many
a parent and many a student, for it in-
volves the problem of the most desirable
architectural education and of the dis-
posal of several of the most critical years
of a young man’s life. Perhaps the

opinions of an old-time Beaux-Arts stu-
dent (1878-81), whose active life for
twenty-five years has been chiefly de-
voted to this problem as a teacher of
architecture, may be of some interest to
readers of the ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

So far as the past is concerned, the
debt of American architecture to the
French school is incontestable. During
the Civil War, and the ten years
each preceding and _ following it,
our architecture was floundering in

the lowest depths of tastelessness
and artistic poverty. There were
few educated architects; the popu-

lar standards were almost grotesquely
inartistic, and really fine architecture
was nearly as impossible to execute as
unlikely to be appreciated. A few brave
souls were, however, striving, in the
face of these conditions, to raise the
standards of public taste and of
the profession, by the quality of their
own work as well as by their training
of young men in their offices, whom

Copyright, 1908, by “‘ Tum ARcHITECTURAL RECcoRD Company.” All rights reserved.
Entered May 22, 1902, as second-class matter, Post Office at New Work, N Y., Act of Congress of March 3d, 1879,

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

they fired with the enthusiasm of their
own zeal. Three names stand foremost
in this roll of honor: R. M. Hunt, H. H.
Richardson and W. R. Ware; and all
three drew from Paris a large part of
their inspiration; Mr. Hunt and Mr.
Richardson for the educational work
they carried on in their offices, as well as
for their professional achievements in
practice; Mr. Ware for the organization
of the earliest American school of arch-
itecture in the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in Boston.* Until the
beginning of the great art revival which
dates from 1876, these three were like
“voices crying in the wilderness,’ but in
the following years their labors began to
bear fruit, and they became acknowl-
edged leaders in the movement. By
1880 there were constantly a dozen or
fifteen Americans in the Ecole at Paris;
there were in our own country three
schools of architecture, with a fourth
about to be opened in Columbia Univer-
sity; scores of American students re-
turned from Paris were practicing for
themselves or helping to build up the

reputation of great offices in which they

worked. In all the schools, Paris-trained
men were in demand as instructors, and
an entirely new standard and style of
draftsmanship and design were being
established in the profession.

The contribution of Paris to our arch-
itecture during this period was three-
fold: It supplied a professional train-
ing at that time unattainable elsewhere ;
it gave us new standards of draftsman-
ship; and it taught our architects new
ideas of monumental planning and com-
position. It is hard now to realize the
poverty of ideals formerly prevailing
even in the offices, the general lack of
broad and monumental conceptions, both
in the planning and in the interior com-
position of our buildings, to say noth-
ing of the poor and flimsy construction
then tolerated and of the uninspired
mechanical draftsmanship with which
the architects’ designs were presented.
It is almost wholly due to the direct and

*Professor Ware was not himself a student in the
Beaux-Arts, but he was a pupil of Hunt’s and based
his organization of the Boston school largely on the
model of the Ecole, which he was familiar with
and had visited in 1865-’66.

indirect influence of the Paris school that
we have emerged from the shadows of
those dark ages, and that our architec-
ture has taken on a character of straight-
forward design and rational and often
artistic planning and composition, un-
known thirty years ago.

During this period there was very
little direct copying or imitation of
French models. The foreign influence
was felt less in the types and details of
American buildings than in a new spirit,
new standards and ideals. It would be
difficult to name a building of Mr.
Hunt’s which betrays any notable anal-
ogies to Ecole types. Even his fine
néo-grec Lenox Library is a_ strongly
individual design. Mr. Richardson
abandoned Renaissance motifs for the
Romanesque very early in his career.
But as the number of Paris-trained
architects and draftsmen increased
and as the constantly swelling tide
of travel to Europe and the multipli-
cation of periodicals and illustrations
made our people more and more familiar
with the foreign masterpieces of archi-
tecture, it was inevitable that the
Parisian influence should extend itself
to the details, and perceptibly modify the
types of our public architecture. More-
over, the Ecole had furnished the model
upon which all our American schools
were shaping the teaching of design, and
in a majority of cases for the last twenty
years and more the instructors in design
in these schools have been Paris-trained
men, and in many instances Frenchmen.
When we add to these influences that of
the many ateliers in widely separated
cities, organized under the auspices of
the Society of Beaux-Arts Architects,
during the last fourteen years, we see
an array of agencies for disseminating
French ideas and methods which abun-
dantly explains their present vogue.

Ll,

Whether this influence is at present
salutary or the reverse is our second
question. How far is it based on solid
merit and how far on superficial appear-
ances and fictitious excellences? And
do the merits of the French system out-
weigh its defects? It must be borne

THE INFLUENCE OF THE ECOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS. 243

in mind that the teaching of the Paris
school has not always been uniform and
unchanging, either in its controlling
ideas or its details. Art in France has
been too vital to resist the influences
of progress or even of prevailing fash-
ions. But it has always rested upon a
solid basis of accumulated experience
and tradition which has grown up since
the founding of the school under Louis
XIV. This solid structure of crystal-
lized experience has seemed to many
too inert for real efficiency, and its ten-
dency has, no doubt, always been toward
conservatism. For this very reason,
while its methods and details have varied
from time to time, it has on the whole
successfully resisted the vagaries, fads
and novelties which so often tempt the
educator from the safer paths of dis-
cipline into wasteful and unhappy exper-
iments. Originality and innovation be-
long to the designer’s maturity; the dis-
cipline most needed by the student is
in the fundamentals of architectural
conception and expression; and the tra-
ditions of the Paris school have always
tended to curb his eccentricities and to
teach him to do well and thoroughly the
accepted and established thing. This is
the function of the “plan type” and the
“parti type” of so many of the familiar
problems given out. The fundamental
importance of the plan is always insisted
upon; composition is exalted above de-
tail; the presentation or “rendering” is
according to well-developed principles
and traditions. The student is made to
study and re-study his design in all its
aspects, to draw and re-draw, constantly
revising the design—plan, section and
elevation being carried along more or
less together through all these revisions.
In the daily criticism of the fellow-stu-
dents as well as the occasional criticisms
of the patron, it is primarily the artistic
considerations that are emphasized. It is
a somewhat conventional system and
tradition, but a very salutary discipline
for the youngster. It has the qualities
of its defects; it is not “practical” but
artistic in its aims and spirit. It does
not encourage the study of mechanical
and utilitarian details; that is perhaps
its weakness. But it does open the stu-

dent’s eyes to the artistic factors and
possibilities of the problem. It accus-
toms him to thinking of the building as
an artistic unit, as primarily and always
a'work of art, an object of artistic design
in plan, composition and detail.

It is, no doubt, ‘these qualities in the
Paris teaching which have most attract-
ed American students. The atmosphere
of American city life is not artistic.
Utility and cost are dominant considera-
tions in nearly all public enterprises. The
whole pressure of our feverish material
activity tends to crush out the vital
spark of imagination, and to relegate
beauty to the lowest place among the
factors of design; witness the lack of
decorative sculpture and of imaginative
mural decoration in our architecture gen-
erally. In the Paris school the Ameri-
can student breathes a different atmos-
phere, aesthetically exhilarating and illu-
minating. When he returns, the ma-
terial considerations impose themselves
upon him as before, but they weigh less
heavily upon him. If he has really profited
by his sojourn abroad, imagination and a
more highly artistic taste will assert
themselves in all his future work.

Incidental, moreover, to this discipline
are other factors of great importance.
The French have a peculiar skill in the
sort of suggestive criticism which the
student needs; a quick perception both of
faults and merits, an incisive manner of
statement, which are very stimulating.
The atelier traditions of mutual help be-
tween the younger and older students
are valued by every one who has come
under them, at least in his younger days.
Equally valuable surely is the environ-
ment of the student, surrounded as he
is by notable monuments of architecture
and galleries filled with the masterpieces
of all the ages. The whole city is a
museum, and within a few hours’ ride
are hundreds of superb buildings, an-
cient, mediaeval and modern. The treas-
ures of Rome and Italy, the cathedrals of
England and the picturesque monuments
of Spain and of Germany, may be visit-
ed at the cost of a trip like that from
New York to Buffalo or Chicago. The
unconscious education of the Old World
environment is as important, often, as

244

the conscious training of the atelier.
These combined advantages quite suffice
to explain the popularity of the Ecole
with American students; while the fa-
cility and ready resource in draitsman-
ship and often in design, which they
there acquire, accounts for the demand
which always exists in the offices for
their services.

But conditions change, and it has now
become a pertinent question whether
what these young men have thus gained
abroad is really what is most needed
here. Is the influence they bring to
bear upon our current architecture
wholly an advantage? The answer is
not as easy as was that to the first ques-
tion of the three we have propounded.

In: the figst. place,there: are “now
in the United States five or six large
and important schools of architec-
ture and three or four others in
the second rank, besides a _ con-
siderable number of departments giving
architectural instruction, in technical
schools and other instituttons. To these
must be added not only the very exten-
sive work in design conducted by the
Society of Beaux-Arts Architects, but
innumerable evening classes in various
cities. There has thus grown up in this
country a vast apparatus for the teach-
ing of architecture to all grades and
classes of students, from the office boy
to the advanced post-graduate. There is
no danger of such a dearth of draftsmen,
possessed of at least an elementary train-
ing, as existed twenty-five years ago, nor
is Paris any longer the one place in the
world where a really efficient and ar-
tistic training can be had. Moreover,
our architecture has undergone an ex-
traordinary evolution—almost a_revolu-
tion—since the Centennial of 1876; in-
deed, since the Columbian Fair at Chi-
cago. It has advanced along two lines,
that of monumental planning and com-
position, thanks largely to the earlier in-
fluences of the Paris school and school-
men; and that of scientific construction,
as a result of wholly native American
initiative. Thus we have been outgrow-
ing the need of absolute reliance on
Parisian inspiration on the one hand,
while on the other we have been develop-

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

ing wholly new types for which the tra-
ditional French architecture has no an-
alogues and can furnish little suggestion
—at least little that is really appropriate.

Now if the hosts of returning Ecole
men had been always able to distinguish
between what is fundamental and what
is superficial in their Parisian experi-
ences, there would be less question of the
value of their training as a preparation
for American practice. But it would
seem that many of them have been daz-
zled with a false glamour, or bewitched
by the artistic jargon and cant of the
ateliers, into glorifying the superficial
and the external, and forgetting the
eternal and fundamental principles which
give whatever is valuable to their foreign
training. Confused and bewildered by
the lack of correspondence between the
ideals of the atelier and the conditions
which here confront them, such men
have with little discrimination un-
loaded upon their operations and
office buildings, their houses and
chapels and stables, the stock forms
of the atelier. And the often uned-
ucated youths whose cleverness with
pen and brush has won them men-
tions and medals in Beaux-Arts
competitions in our own cities, have imi-
tated and sometimes surpassed the for-
eign-trained men in the adoption of the
French architectural vernacular for the
buildings they have designed, “Car-
touche architecture’ has become a by-
word in New York. And the very clev-
erness of presentation, the technical skill
of draftsmanship, the facility with which
these forms are used, help the vogue of
this mistaken art among the uncritical,
while they discredit at the same time
such elements as are really sound in the
training of these young men, among
those who, with truer taste discern the
hollowness of this architectural trickery.

Moreover, there has been, whether
justly or not, but unmistakably growing,
among the older men, including many
who gratefully acknowledge the value of
their own Paris studies, a feeling that
the Ecole is no longer wholly true to the
best of its old traditions. We are no
doubt naturally Jaudatores temporis actt,
or it may be, on the other hand, that the

THE INPLUENCE OF (THe

Ecole training seems to us less sound
now than it used to be, not because the
old ways were better in Paris than now,
but because the new ways are better here
than they once were. We try to take a
detached view in judging both the old
and the new alike in Paris and in the
United States, and we believe that the
Ecole draftsmanship is to-day less thor-
ough, less careful and studied than it
once was, and that the pursuit of the new
has to some extent diverted the Ecole
from the pursuit of the beautiful. This
may be a transition to better things
which shall be both new and beautiful,
but even if it so be, the present state of
the Ecole training—its spirit and _ its
standards—seem to us to-day less fitted to
train the young American’s taste and
artistic habits for the special problems
of his professional career than was for-
merly the case. Our own schools do the
work more efficiently and fittingly in al-
most all particulars. Certainly in all
that relates to construction and practice,
as well as to the history and theory of
the art, the teaching in our leading
schools is fully equal if not superior to
that of the Ecole. I say this with full
recognition of the fact that Julien Gua-
det, the author of the famous treatise on
the Theory of Architecture, still lectures
at the Beaux-Arts. Feeble as he is, in
his advanced years, his discourses on the
fundamental principles are stimulating
and suggestive; but for American stu-
dents what he has to say of the planning
of theatres and libraries, hospitals and
schools and churches, is either so far
removed from American ideas and prac-
tice or so far behind them as to be a
detriment rather than an advantage to
the American.

The same is, in the judgment of many
thoughtful men, true of the entire course

ECOLE 3DES BEAUX-ARTS. 245

for the diplome—that crowning honor
which looms so large in the estimation
of many young Americans. In France
the diplome has official significance and
prestige; it is a passport to government
employ, and its value both in a business
way and socially is very great. It has,
of course, no such significance here, and
the prestige of the postscription Diplémé
par le gouvernement is with us variable
and problematic. It costs the American
student four to six years of study
in Paris. If he has already taken a
four years’ course in an American school
of architecture, it means that he has de-
voted two or three years of his time in
Paris merely to repeating what he has
already gone over in the American
school; and that, of the remaining two
or three years the greater part is devoted
to the study of methods of con-
struction and _ practice wholly for-
eign tO. our systems: and the-- rest
to advanced work in design which
constitutes the only really valuable
part of the whole long program. And
even this advanced work in design might
have been carried on in the American
school. All the larger schools of this
country are perfectly well equipped for
such post-graduate work in design, and
teach it in the judgment of many quite
as well as it is done in Paris.*

iT,

Coming, then, to the third and last
of our questions, that as to the future
value of the French influence and train-
ing, my own convictions have been by
recent experience greatly strengthened
on the following propositions:

First, that so far as actual professional
training is concerned the American
schools are doing, and will in the future
continue to do, better and more efficient

*This last statement will, I fear, be condemned
as rank heresy by the thick-and-thin advocates of
study in Paris. But certain recent experiences are
valid evidence in its support. For some years past
graduate and advanced non-graduate students regis-
tered in the Columbia University school have been
doing their work in design in Paris ateliers, upon
programs sent out by the Columbia Committee on
Design, and have sent their work back to be judged
by the same juries which pass upon the work of the
Morningside Heights students. These juries are
composed of the heads or associate directors of the
three Columbia ateliers with from one to three
“outside’’ architects from downtown offices. In
every case, so far as I know, every member of the
jury has been a Beaux-Arts man, so that there could

have been no prejudice against the Paris men
or their work. Yet im every instance the jury has
pronounced that work disappointing in quality,
both as to design and presentation, and has ranked
it on the average below the work of the students in
New York. It will be interesting to note whether
the continuance of this international experiment,
further confirms the verdict of the juries referred
to. I do not care to attach too much importance to
these results, but I think they tend to disprove the
superstition, founded upon conditions that have
passed away, that the teaching of design in Paris is
so greatly superior to our own as to be worth the
sacrifice of four or five precious years of the stu-
dent’s life after graduation from the American
school.

246

work for Americans than the Paris
school is doing or can do in all that re-
lates to the history, theory, science and
practice of the profession. Why should
they not? They have adopted from the
French school all that has been found
in its methods to be best fitted for Ameri-
can conditions; they have added to these
the accumulated results of American ex-
perience and the best of American
methods; they are officered by teachers
thoroughly trained and full of devotion
and enthusiasm; they are for the most
‘part admirably housed and equipped,
and they naturally appreciate American
requirements and conditions as_ the
French school and teachers can never do.

Secondly, even in the field of design
the American teaching is now fully on
a par with the French, and must in the
future become increasingly well adapted
to the special needs and conditions of
American practice, and, so far forth, bet-
ter for Americans than even the brilliant
French teaching.

Thirdly, in the nature of things Ameri-
can architecture cannot and should not
continue to be dependent upon French
ideas, taste, or training. Ours is a strong
and progressive art, capable of standing
on its own feet and of developing its
own ideals, its own practitioners and its
own training. The glamor of French
artistic pre-eminence, real as that pre-
eminence has been and still is in many
fields, has tended, in the judgment of
many to keep our art too long in leading
strings, and—especially in architecture—
to hamper free and normal development
along the lines of American thought and
taste. As a result much of our architec-
ture, even when excellently planned and
admirably and scientifically constructed,
masquerades in a dress essentially for-
eign and exotic. It seems to me high
time to break these leading-strings, and
to develop our architecture, as our en-
gineers have developed their engineer-
ing, independently of any foreign prac-
tice or foreign fashions.

Fourthly, for such Americans as can
afford to devote three or four years to
further professional studies, after gradu-
ating from a first-class American school
of architecture, two years of Parisian

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

atelier work on advanced problems fol-
lowed by one or two years of European
travel and study—including if possible a
full year in Italy or in Italy and Greece
provide a far broader, safer and- more
profitable discipline than the same length
of time devoted to study in the Ecole,
whether for the diplome or not, with
merely incidental short sight-seeing and
sketching trips between the problems. In
two years, perhaps even in one, an
American graduate can get all that is
best worth while in the Parisian training
—its camaraderie, its artistic spirit, its
environment, the French point of view——
without being carried away by the ficti-
tious and misleading affectation of ar-
tistic seriousness which in time seduces
the judgment of the most sensible Amer-
ican and makes him believe that the con-
tinued solution of French Ecole problems
is the one only path to architectural sal-
vation and the hope of future glory. It
is a pleasant infatuation, from which it
takes years to recover ; but it is an infat-
uation contrary to reason, for it elevates
the atelier problem into a rank as discip-
line for American architects superior to
the discipline of actual struggle with
American problems under American
conditions. All that is fundamental,
the ground-conceptions of art and logic
that underlie the best I'rench teaching,
an intelligent American graduate ought
to master in a year’s work in the atelier.
It is in my judgment a sad waste of time
and strength for American graduates to
spend the better part of a year in trying
to ‘‘make” the Ecole, reviewing elemen-
tary subjects in which they were exam-
ined four or five years agone; and then
spending precious months on “analyti-
ques” and order-problems such as they
have already had their fill of in the early
years of their American schooling; at
last, at the end of two or three years
“making” the First Class, to begin on
problems like those of their fourth year
at the home school; and finally return-
ing with their precious diplomes to be-
gin office work nine or ten years from
the time they first entered on their archi-
tectural studies. The fruit is hardly
worth the cost of its raising; Je jeu ne
vaut pas la chandelle.

LE INPLUENCE- OF THE: ECOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS. 247

Nay, I would go further. I would
even question at the outset the necessity
or wisdom of going to Paris at all to
study, except as a part of a scheme of
travel-study covering all the great archi-
tectural centers. Ii the student must
enter an atelier, let him do it for the pur-
pose of broadening his culture by a
year’s work under foreign masters and
according to foreign methods. Then let
him go to Rome and Northern Italy, the
centers from which, in the early middle
ages and again in the Renaissance,
flowed the streams of influence which
helped make the great architecture of
Western Europe. Let him visit Con-
stantinople and see for himself the
grandest interior ever erected for relig-
ious worship. Let him visit the Medit-
erranean countries, and the great medie-
val cathedrals, or study the work of mod-
ern architects in Germany and England.
A year thus spent after a year in Paris
—two years in all—would furnish a
splendid education of the greatest possi-
ble artistic and cultural value, broaden-
ing and not narrowing, as the French
atelier training too often proves, and at
less than half the cost, in time, of the
five or six years’ grind for the dip-
lome: °1- believe if all..our young
graduates would follow such a_pro-
gram our national architecture would
rapidly develop a freshness, a freedom,
a self-reliance and boldness of style and
expression which it now greatly lacks,
and which dependence on _ Parisian
models and training can never give it.

I have written this with full and grate-

ful realization of the great debt we owe
to the Ecole; with full appreciation of
the excellence of its methods, of its high
ideals, and of its admirable performance.
The minor fads which prevail in it from
time to time, the recipes and formulae
of this or that atelier, “spinning pro-
cesses’ and infallible systems for solving
all problems, these do not disturb my ad-
miration for its splendid achievements
and for what is sound and true in its tra-
ditions and its ideals. They are only the
froth upon its deeper currents. But
FE believe we have outgrown. our
dependence upon it, and that with
our present civilization, culture and
educational resources, we _ shall pre-
sent an astonishing spectacle to the
world if we continue to send every
year scores of graduate students to lay
on the Ecole shrine the offering of four
or five of their best years. The tide that
once rolled from America to the German
universities has dwindled to almost noth-
ing. I foresee a day in the near future
when American graduates in architec-
ture will cease frequenting the courts
and halls of the Paris Ecole. Nay, I
dare to forecast the coming of a day in
the future, not too far distant, when
French students will come to America to
study architecture, seeking fresh inspira-
tion, a new point of view, a new enthu-
siasm, in the study of an architecture as
verile, as fresh and independent in its
ideas as the American people itself. The
sooner we emancipate our art from de-
pendence upon Paris the sooner will that
day come. A. D. F. Hamlin.

‘sqoo}TWory ‘ueyeUueOW ‘IHLOH WITHNG'Id-HONOUOTTUVW AHL Sf oNCANO, SMERIY:

Architectural Expression in a New
Material

Practical and Ethical Problems of Design in Reinforced Concrete

The principle of reinforcement by
means of steel rods, wire mesh or light
bars in truss form has given to concrete
a leading place among structural ma-
terials. It marks a departure in many
essentials from traditional construction,
and therefore must exert a like influence
upon design. For this reason it has be-
come a subject of absorbing interest in
the architectural world, as it presents
new problems not only of structure, but
also of ornamental and, possibly, even
of stylistic expression. The many prac-
tical advantages of concrete and the in-
creasing scarcity of lumber assure it a
prominent place in the architecture ot
the future.

Quite a little work which has already
been produced is suggestive of appro-
priate treatment of form and surface.
Still, the bulk of concrete building so far
has been on purely commercial or engi-
neering lines. We are as yet feeling our
way on the outskirts of a new field of
design.

The questions that arise as to the
proper range and limitations in expres-
sion of structural concrete and surmise
as to the lines of development likely to
be adopted divide themselves into some-
what the following lines of thought:

First—The characteristics of the con-
structive system and qualities of the ma-
terial and wherein these are distinctly at
variance with present-day or traditional
form in current use; which form was
created in other materials and systems of
stability. Deductions, following of ne-
cessity, as to artistic and consistent ex-
pression in logical accord with construc-
tive meanings and not inappropriately
imitative.

Second.—Physical and mechanical de-
tails and economics of construction must
be considered as they may bear upon the
practical carrying into effect of the ideas
which the logic of architectural expres-
sion leads us to attempt. Such matters,

for instance, as the various surface tex-
tures to be obtained by different methods
of finishing and by choice of aggregates,
limitations of form work and_ other
points of relative ease or difficulty of ex-
ecution.

Third.—Study of the subject on such
lines as above will reveal the essentials
of concrete, in contrast to other mate-
rials and the traditional forms of archi-
tecture. But when we have arrived at
this point we will know more of what
not to do than of what to do. Having
determined what to avoid, we will find
the gate is opened upon original oppor-
tunities of surface treatment, as the in-
crustation of tile, contrast of plain sur-
face. -with ...-color.- ..ormament. ...aad
wrought metal; motives of delight-
ful promise, and in which. some
successful work has already been
accomplished. But, bound as_ our
design conceptions necessarily are to
forms and details handed down to us and
expressive for the most part of the con-
structive meanings of other materials
than concrete; and, in view of the fact
that this new construction is being in-
troduced for buildings of varied char-
acter and great size, some interesting
issues arise as to rational design and
composition. A style that has marked
individuality rather than adaptability
may be ill suited to the wide variation
of motives existing between different
classes of modern buildings. Those of
small scale and simple composition pre-
sent a problem of comparatively plain
and harmonious solution. More com-
plex structure, on the other hand, intro-
duces decidedly more intricate questions
of design ethics. The wall and roof
motive of a two-story country dwelling
is a problem much more suggestive of
artistic solution than a pier and girder
and curtain-wall construction on a large
scale. The necessity for considerable
compromise with classicism and the lan-

250

guage of masonry will probably be rec-
ognized if we are to achieve much dig-
nity of design with the latter variety of
building. We will also probably con-
clude that the best progress will be made
by slow development rather than by rev-
olutionary measures.

THE LOGIC OF CONCRETE.

Concrete is by no means a new build-
ing material, but not until recently did
it occupy any but a secondary position.
The Romans were the most notable users
of this material, though entirely as a
useful substitute for more costly ma-
sonry or as a material for rough walls
which would be faced with stone or
brick. The articulations natural to the
latter materials would therefore be ex-
pressed: the concrete was merely a back-
ing.

Stucco was sometimes used as a finish
for walls. This had been a quite fre-
quent method in still earlier times, and
was again later, in the Italian Renais-
sance, when architectural masonry detail
was much imitated in this medium. The

same thing is done very frequently to-
day.

In stucco over brick or rubble ma-
sonry (which is a rough concrete) the
primary motives of concrete may be
suggested but not fully expressed. The

building is not entirely monolithic,
though it often approaches this, in im-
pression more than reality. Its walls,
at least, are single masses instead of
being made up of cut and jointed small
units. Esxcept; however, . for. dead
weight support, the constructive office
of concrete is not expressed. Therefore
the meaning of lintels, arches and of all
members detached from the mass is not
of concrete, but of stone or wood. Even
though these are superficially in cement,
they retain the forms of the other ma-
terials in which they were originally
created, because the actual construction
is still upon the principles of those ma-
terials. However, the suggestive treat-
ment of stuccoed walls and the imita-
tions of architectural forms in plastic
cement or stucco furnish an introduc-
tion to the motives of structural con-
crete, architecturally considered. It is

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

the intermediate phase between the lat-
ter and the architecture of small jointed
units built up on the static principles ot
column and lintel or arch.
In -recent- years. a -large -number- ot
well-designed country houses have been
executed in stucco laid over wire lath
or brick. Frequently merely the wall
surfaces are stuccoed; features, such as
columns, cornices, eaves, being in wood,
stone or brick, as the case may be. In
other examples, architectural members
and ornaments have been cast in ce-
ment; the composition and detail in such
designs is, however, invariably masonry
architecture executed in a_ substitute
material. It must, at the same time, be
admitted that there is more certainty ot
producing beauty of form by this means
than by relying upon our present inex-
perience for a more logical expression of
the material. But this is anticipating
our arguments. The truth of what has
been said just above is evident in the
examples which have been selected for
illustration as typical of present design
that makes use of stucco surface, but
otherwise follows conventional construc-
tion and architecture:. The. cottage
shown in the first illustration pos-
sesses the simplicity, the plastic sug-
gestiveness of a geruine concrete
building, having roof and minor acces-
sories in wood. The large house at Ros-
lyn, L. I., reveals a composition of much
beauty and academic feeling. The walls
are brick, covered with stucco; the
architectural features are cast in cement;
the terrace wall is concrete, cement faced
in forms. The design, however, is en-
tirely conceived in terms of stone; ce-
ment and stucco have been adopted as
a substitute, evidently, not from choice.
The stucco building, when it can
break away from being a replica ot
stonework executed in a cheaper mate-
rial, tends to develop a plasticity ot
treatment, a monolithic breadth and sur-
face texture of its own. There is little
distinction, as a matter of design, be-
tween plastering mortar on walls of
brick, clay blocks or concrete, if the
latter is not part of a reinforced mono-
lith. A solid concrete wall is scarcely
more than a form of rubble masonry,

251

MATERIAL.

A NEW

EXPRESSION

ARCHITECTURAL

(AuedmoD USTED pue[}J10g SBiZV Jo Asoqanod fq)

‘AN ‘STIVA SNH1D LV HONECISHU—HLVI AIM NO OOONLS JO AIA NVXO NV

252

but one which the fineness of the ag-
gregate makes it easier to render with
a presentable surface. But the develop-
ment of concrete construction has ad-
vanced considerably beyond this.

Several methods are now in vogue in
which concrete is used, with greater or
less completeness, as the structural ma-
terial. First, there is the above-described
stucco on brick or on metal lath over
frame. This cannot be classed as con-
crete architecture, except in so far as it
implies some of the same motives to a
limited degree, having superficially the
plasticity of cement. It is often attrac-
tive, but is contradictory, and therefore
must borrow and imitate whenever the
simple value of surface seems insuffh-
cient and form is indulged in.

Then we have concrete block con-
struction, but this method possesses even
less of the real characteristics of con-
crete. It is, in fact, purely a work in
artificial stone. Very few attempts have
been made to treat concrete blocks with
any artistic sense; when it has been done,
however, using large blocks finished to

closely imitate real stone and designing
all features just as for stone, it has been

shown to be not without scope. How-
ever, it is unproductive of new thought
in design, beyond the matter of finish to
imitate something else.

Lastly, we have genuine concrete con-
struction. The French first developed
the system of ciment armé. Ten years
ago they were building structures of
considerable size of concrete, in which
were embedded iron rods or mesh, so
disposed in walls, girders and other
structural members as to supply the ten-
sile strength that concrete lacks. Since
then this principle has been worked out
with great precision of detail, both sci-
entifically and commercially. Though
the science is still young, it is practical
to apply it to the entire frame of a build-
ing—columns, piers, roof, girders and
beams, as well as walls.

One thing is at once strikingly ap-
parent, namely, the much greater slen-
derness of the construction as compared
to masonry. Walls may be thinner and
spans of girders longer than we are used
to seeing. Steel frame construction has,

THE “ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

to be sure, accustomed us to much of
this, particularly as to slender verticals.
But this is quite a reversal of the usual
conception of concrete, as massive and
inert, which it is to be sure when used
alone. So concrete must be considered
from now on as a material with essen-
tially new functions and possibilities of
expression.

First of its characteristics as an archi-
tectural material is its plasticity. ‘Tech-
nical language adopts the term “pouring
into the forms,’ which concisely implies
the impressionable ‘nature of the me-
dium, while it describes the actual
method of emplacement. Such material
calls naturally for moulded, flowing
forms growing out of the body material,
in contrast to the principle of detach-
ment of forms and the putting together
of them in small units, which ideas gov-
ern architectural construction and orna-
ment in stone.

Concrete structure is not merely plas-
tic and lending itself to treatment in
large masses; it is monolithic. This is
the second characteristic of general im-
port, carrying with it the distinction we
have just noted. The indication ot
joints is of course illogical, because such
would be merely a pretense of what does
not actually exist.

Furthermore, in dealing logically with
concrete we must revise many of our
most deeply seated notions regarding
stability. Two motives are fundamen-
tally concerned with all architecture:
the one is the pier or column and lintel,
the other the arch, with its inferences of
thrusts and balanced equipoise. Con-
crete, to be sure, does not suppress these
elements of construction, but functional
relations of the component parts are
altered by the fact that not only are the
base, shaft and cap fused in one, but
the lintel or the arch itself becomes
practically one uniform mass with the
pier by virtue of the interwoven rein-
forcement. In consequence, the mean-
ing of many of the members of the con-
ventional order, which has maintained
its integrity from the days of Athens to
our own, disappears in monolithic con-
struction. The capital may remain, at
least in the abstract; some indication be-

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ing announced of weight concentrated
and supported. And the capital is al-
Ways a spot proper to emphasize by the
use of some ornament. Architrave and
frieze have no separate identity, though,
if the expression of monolithic form is
rightly interpreted. A projecting cor-
nice, of course, has perfect reason; in
the mouldings that should compose it,
however, modilions or brackets have no
logical place. A concrete arch, not be-
ing composed of voussoirs and key block,
should not present a pretense of them by
indicating imaginary joints. A chamfer
moulding is about the extent of articula-
tion which should be allowed, though
the crown may be chosen with propriety
as, a: place: for enrichment, “if this: (1s
wanted for its value in a scheme of or-
nament and if the convention of a
wedged and functional key is avoided.

There is a novel slenderness and great
beauty of line in the arched forms to
which reinforced concrete may be

adapted, particularly in bridge work. In
general construction the tendency is to
long spans and segmental or elliptical

sections. It may be observed, in speaking
of the arch, that the fundamental dis-
tinction between arch and beam or lintel
has really disappeared. Spanning an
opening horizontally does not necessarily
imply the principle of the beam, since
we may have an arch of keyed stones
with a flat soffit. The distinction arises
in whether the member is a single unit
of material or several units with radiat-
ing joints and, as a consequence, re-
quiring of its supports either a passive
vertical resistance or one which must
also meet an outward thrust. With re-
inforced concrete all horizontal spans
are the same in constructive system and,
for that matter, the only principle of im-
portance that differentiates a curved
form of span from a beam is that of the
strain line for the particular loads,
which, in turn, determines the curve ot
the arch, if it is to be other than semi-
circular, and the necessary dimensions
of an abutment. But such an arch may
be more accurately defined as a curved
truss; therefore the arch, as understood
in masonry, does not exist in reinforced
concrete.

ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

Arched or domed roofs and various
forms of vaulting are practical possibili-
ties of reinforced concrete, though the
occasions that permit of ceilings of such
character and in durable materials are
rare.

It will be seen from these tendencies
that logical form, as it may be expressed
architecturally in concrete, makes for
severity and simplicity. In all former
styles the emphasis of joint lines has
been a favorite mode of expression. In
this new material plain surface must be
mostly depended upon. Conventional
form, as it has been handed down to us,
is permeated with the feeling of the cut-
ter’s tools. One sees this in the straight
lines and sharpness of mouldings and in
clear-cut carving. Concrete ornament
should show evidences of modeling
rather than sculpturesque quality. Line
has diminished in importance, surface
and color have gained. Mechanically, as
well as zsthetically, the elaborate. forms
of stone architecture, heavily projected
and accurately finished, are contrary to
the nature of concrete and the methods
used in its erection.

Since so much that has seemed posi-
tively essential to design, at least for all
large problems where formal elaboration
is called for, is denied the concrete de-
signer he must evidently either veneer
the structure with other materials in the
same unrelated manner as is done with
a steel frame, or must seek other sources
of inspiration. A motive prolific in op-
portunities is offered in the use of
faience and tile. Pattern is the natural
form of enrichment for flat surface, and
nothing is more consistently in harmony
with the unmechanic and plastic, though
durable, surface of concrete than cera-
mic tile and faience. The tile may be
modeled in low relief, or, again, may be
mosaic inlays of colored marbles or terra
cottas in geometric patterns. The qual-
ity of the concrete surface permits an
expression of the hand-made rather than
of the mechanically finished.

Some ideas which have already been
developed along the lines of tile mosaic
are shown in the accompanying illustra-
tions. Attention is particularly called to
the all-concrete house at South Orange,

259

ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION IN A NEW MATERIAL.

(‘Auevdmop jJUsMED pue[1410g S¥I}V JO AsoqInood Ag)
TM ‘@ ‘VOIVIWVES LV BZONHCGISHU—ALAYONOD GCHOUOANIDY

250

which will be referred to again. A house
on the island of Jamaica, a photograph
of which is also given, leans rather more
to derived architectural form, but is ap-
propriately_designed for its setting, and,
except perhaps in the colonnade, is a
logical statement of concrete form.

lass

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

or veneering with thin slabs or tiles in
appropriate motives are destined to be
leading characteristics of concrete de-
sign. Recognized laws of ornament and

style will determine the relative value of
location and distribution or concentra-
tion; capitals, pilaster panels, spandrels,

ENTRANCE TO THE PONCE DE LEON.

St. Augustine, Fla.

Carrére & Hastings, Architects.

(Copyright by H. C. White Co.)

Color, of course, may be indulged in
without stint. To be sure, it is rather
fearful to think what may be in store for
us in the way of chromatic outbursts
should the speculative suburban builder
turn his attention to this subject. In
any event, polychromy and incrustation

tympana of arches are natural points for
accent. As a general rule, such enrich-
ment is more effective when highly con-
centrated upon certain central motives
of a design and allowed to contrast with
expanses of plain surface. One of the
limitations of decoration of this type is

ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION IN A NEW MATERIAL.

that it inclines to smallness of scale;
thus suggesting its better adaptability
to the refinements of a small edifice than
to the monumental proportions of a
building in the grand manner of the
Italian or French tradition. In other
words, it is more properly decoration
than architecture in a monumental sense.

Fenestration assumes an important
place in concrete design. In many com-
positions there will be an obvious oppor-
tunity to strike a contrasting note to
plain wall surface by the introduction of
richly ornamented metal frames and
mullions or sinuous tracery, if the latter
would be in harmony with other motives
or style used. Wrought-iron balconies,
gateways, lanterns will be valuable ac-
cessories. We believe, too, that ham-
mered copper for certain purposes, such
as copings and cornices, may be used not
‘irrationally and certainly with beauty of
effect. Of course, where metal is so
applied it should be acknowledged and
its characteristics emphasized, not dis-
guised.

When a timber roof is used, eaves and
carved wooden brackets can be made of
value. The typical treatment for an all-
concrete roof is a covering of flat hand-
made tile, laid with wide, and, if desired,
irregular mortar joints. As such tile can
be made in soft and beautiful tones noth-
ing could be finer and pleasingly unme-
chanical, particularly for domestic work.

The finish and texture and tone of
concrete surfaces may be varied accord-
ing to what seems best to harmonize
with the character of particular build-
ings and designs, as will be referred to
more at length presently.

Such are some of the motives, full of
imaginative promise, that are open to
concrete and that should prove, in the
problem of the small building, at any
rate, an adequate compensation for the
forced abstinence from the architectural
formalities we have become accustomed
to, but which are phrased so entirely in
the language of stone.

THE ECONOMICS OF CONCRETE.

The use of reinforced concrete in en-
gineering works and for factory build-
ings has increased at an enormous rate

257

in the last few years. For suburban
houses, garages and other small build-
ings it has also made fair progress. In
the field of larger buildings the advance
has been much slower. This has been
due partly to architectural doubts and
partly to uncertainty as to whether the
practical advantages and cost saving
might not be offset by greater disadvan-
tages and limitations. We think the bal-
ance is swinging more and more in fa-
vor of concrete as a practical method of
construction for an increasing variety of
purposes. But, whether or not the ten-
tative efforts that have been made up to
date mark an experiment that will be
abandoned before long, as far as large
constructions and their architectural re-
quirements are concerned, will depend
ultimately upon economic questions.
The most constant and obtrusive objec-
tion is in the expense and difficulty of
form work where a design departs from
plain surfaces and does not permit of
much repetition of the same units. This
will no doubt enforce upon concrete de-
sign a confinement to very simple treat-
ment, except in so far as it may combine
other materials with itself to supplement
these restrictions.

The economic advantages which per-
tain to reinforced concrete are based
upon the scientific use of concrete and
steel, so united in a section as to obtain
the greatest benefit from each. Steel is
vastly more expensive per pound or ton
than concrete; but, on the other hand,
its unit of tensile stress is 16,000 pounds
per square inch against about 50 pounds
for concrete. Therefore it is the most
economical material for tension and
sheer members; while concrete, on the
other hand, may be used with greater
economy for compression, as its ratio to
steel, as to compressive strength, is only
about one to thirty. Reinforced con-
crete is designed upon this principle, and
it will readily be seen, even from a rudi-
mentary statement of the matter, why
this system has gained ground rapidly
where the question of relative cost is
foremost and the construction simple.
In the factory class of buildings it has
been proved to be but a small percentage
more costly, in some cases even, it is

258

claimed that it costs less than brick walls
and “mill construction” floors of heavy
timber. Also it possesses advantages of
heavy load capacity, fire resistance and
freedom from vibration that more than
offset the slightly increased outlay.

For such reasons it would seem to be
merely a matter of a little more familiar-
ity, standardization of formule and
demonstration of reliability and system
in execution to assure a much more
widespread popularity, which will em-
brace buildings of miscellaneous charac-
ter. No system of construction promises
a greater degree of permanence. For a
certain class of buildings this is not an
advantage, since this construction can-
not be taken down or altered with ease,
as can be done with buildings put to-
gether in the usual manner.

The system adapts itself either to self-
supporting walls or curtain walls carried
by girders at each story, their load,
in turn, transmitted to columns—the
method of the steel frame, with the dif-
ference that we do not necessarily have
to protect the members of the skeleton
with brick, tile and stone. The neces-
sary covering of the metal tension bars
is done with one to three inches of con-
crete below or outside them, as the case
may be.

As to exterior treatment, some sort of
surface finish must be given. Further
elaboration of detail depends so entirely
upon the type of building that compari-
son in cost could only be made in each
case; but, as a general proposition, the
architectural enrichment of a concrete
facade should cost no more than one in
brick, stone and terra cotta of a corre-
sponding indulgence in design phrases
and attainment of architectural effect.
Besides, it is a perfectly simple matter
to face an exterior, or as much of it as
we wish, with a veneer of masonry, con-
crete in such case simply taking the
place of the usual fireproof steel frame.
Such a method does not advance archi-
tectural design in concrete, but it has
been seized upon as a practical and easy
solution of the dilemma.

The question, economically, lies prin-
cipally in the relative costs of the two
systems as constructive framework. The

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

fewer the* elements of plan and sec-
tion, the more constant the repetition of
unit dimensions, the less will be the ex-
pense of concrete, owing to the simpli-
fication of form work and rapidity of
erection. The point which commands
attention is that reinforced concrete is
adaptable, constructively, to present com-
mercial requirements for all but some
extreme types of buildings, and possesses
some primary advantages in the question
of cost. To offset this, stand the difficul-
ties incidental to form work. Also, the
fact that concrete work cannot be pushed
in freezing weather may often be a seri-
ous drawback. The science is as yet in
a somewhat experimental stage. A ca-
lamitous series of failures, due to care-
lessness or ignorance, has induced con-
servatism. The greatest care and vigi-
lance of superintendence is necessary.
Absolute regularity in proportioning the
ingredients, placing the reinforcement,
and in other details of execution must
be observed, for such errors are quickly
hidden and are difficult ot correction if
detected. The mixing and pouring of
concrete requires the minimum of skill,
but the maximum of care. Therefore
every building in this construction should
be superintended as systematically as the
most important work of engineering.
But with this responsibility realized and
accepted and reliability proved, a great
obstacle to the use of concrete in im-
portant buildings will have been re-
moved. Large building operations, in
these days of close figuring of investment
return must adhere closely to methods
that are precise and certain in results as
to cost, time of erection and practicabil-
ity of all details. Efficient system, cer-
tainty and uniformity in meeting cus-
tomary requirements can only be arrived
at gradually by a new constructive sys-
tem. Examples of a great variety of
types of building are, however, already
to be found in different parts of the
country.

The treatment of surface is one of the
most important matters concerned with
the architectural possibilities of concrete.
As laid up with care, but purely for util-
ity—a rather wet mixture, well tamped
in forms of average regularity, being

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259

EW MATERIAL.

ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION IN A N

260

used—a fairly smooth, but regular, sur-
face results, a film of mortar settling
against the sides of the mould. How-
ever, every irregularity and almost every
joint of the boarding leaves an imprint.
Patches of exposed aggregate show here

a Oe

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

even texture and one agreeable to the
eye. Two quite opposite effects may be
had: one consists in brushing and wash-
ing away the cement skin, thus exposing
particles of aggregate; in the other
method a surface mixture of selected

DETAIL OF “REINFORCED CONCRETE RESIDENCE AT SOUTH ORANGE, INGE
(By courtesy of Vulcanite Cement Company.)

and there and variations in color occur
in streaks and layers. In short, such a
surface is not merely dull and uninter-
esting, its inconsequent irregularities are
objectionable. Several methods are in
vogue aiming at the production of an

material is applied to the face of the
moulds, just ahead of the pouring of
the concrete, and, on removal of the
forms, the surface may be further fin-
ished by washing or tooling.

The first of these methods frankly ad-

ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION IN A NEW MATERIAL.

mits and displays the material as con-
crete. Some very delightful and varied
effects may be obtained by using aggre-
gate of graded sizes and mixing in a cer-
tain proportion of pebbles, marble
screenings, burned clay or broken brick,
flecks of color thus giving an animated
texture to the otherwise leaden and life-
less material. Brushing may be done to
greater or less depth, giving a more or
less roughened surface, as desired. It is
necessary to brush and wash the sur-
face while the concrete is still green, as
otherwise the process would be too la-
borious, in fact, would be precluded.
Therefore the forms must be removed
at about twenty-four hours after placing
the concrete. The necessity of remov-
ing the form work before the concrete
has thoroughly hardened considerably
limits the practicability of this process.
Load-sustaining sections must be hard
before the supporting mould is removed
from underneath. Though, where this
effect, rather than a smoother finish, is
wanted, it should be quite possible to at-
tain it in a measure, even when the con-
crete is quite hard, by the use of acid
and the stone bush hammer. Sufficient
of the mortar skin could be removed to
obliterate the impression of board vein-
ings and layer marks, and at the same
time expose some of the aggregates.
After this tool dressing the wall should
be brushed down with dilute acid, fol-
lowed by water played on by a hose to
prevent the acid from penetrating. Lime-
stone is barred where acid cleaning is
done.

The brush-wash manner produces de-
cidedly the most legitimate surface, the
only proper finish, it might even be said,
where consistent concrete design and
ornament is carried out. As a matter of
fact, the method is best suited, for prac-
tical reasons, to buildings of small di-
mensions, and artistically, to those of
simple wall composition. This finish
was successfully rendered in the inter-
esting house at South Orange, N. J.,
shown in the illustrations, though the
photographs fail to reproduce the color
quality.

In the present transitional period, and
quite possibly beyond it, a smoother tex-

261

ture, more nearly that of cut stone, will
be considered more desirable for many
purposes. Such a finish is arrived at by
the method known as mortar facing,
though it is by no means limited to mor-
tar of the ordinary variety. The most
primitive fashion of applying is to
trowel on a mortar against the face of
the form about an inch thick and for
the height of the layer about to be laid
and to fill in behind and at once with
the ordinary concrete, which, of course,
firmly unites with it as the mortar is
still soft. An improvement insuring
greater accuracy is to form a slot by
means of a sheet-iron plate specially de-
vised for the purpose, with angles to
hold it vertically at a desired distance
from the face of the forms. The pre-
pared concrete for the facing is first
filled into the slot and immediately after-
ward the backing is poured and tamped
down. Then the plate is raised, allow-
ing the two to be firmly bonded together
by ramming. When the forms are re-
moved the facing will require dressing
and cleaning down, as, even though
the boards have been covered with oil
and soap, the soft material will take the
impression of grain and joints and ef-
florescence may break out in spots. A
great variety of texture, and of color as
well, may, of course, be achieved accord-
ing to the aggregates selected: glister-
ing marble, gray trap rock, yellow sand
and brick dust.

A cheaper method, but one not to be
recommended, since more permanent
finish is possible, consists in applying a
skim coat of mortar to the surface after
the building is erected and forms have
been removed.

The two principal methods above de-
scribed, respectively that of outspoken
concrete, aggregates showing in reliet,
and the surfaced—finish, displaying an
even, fine texture closely resembling that
of cut stone, though it may be coarser,
are destined, we think, to characterize
two schools of design. Each is in its
way legitimate, because in harmony with
its own set of ideas and adaptable to
widely separated classes of buildings.

As reverse forms must be made for all
mouldings and projecting sections, and

THE “ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

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THE GLOEKER BUILDING.
Office building type, showing dependence of design upon masonry conventions.

Pittsburgh, Pa.
(Photo by courtesy of The Cement Age.)

ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION IN A NEW MATERIAL. 263

as economical erection is out of the
question where these variations are fre-
quent and complicated, it will be under-
stood why this least expensive and most
commonplace form of enrichment for
stone and wood becomes, with concrete,
a costly and troublesome one. The diffi-
culty of mouldings is therefore out of
proportion to the effect gained if we can
find a better employment for our efforts
in direct and suitable form of expression.
At the same time, mouldings cannot be
entirely dispensed with, and if simple
and of large profile, but not too massive
in projection, may come within the rea-
sonable scope of practice. Abrupt pro-
jections, as of balconies, are consistent
in a material with notable cantilever
propensities.

It is simple, on the contrary, to leave
recesses in the forms in which blocks of
other material may later be inserted.
Concrete being so restricted in respect to
mouldings, it would appear rational to
introduce other materials for occasional
emphasis of this kind where line and
shadow value may thus be given, which
would otherwise be lacking from the
design, such materials, of course, to be
acknowledged without disguise. A pro-
gramme, for instance, that offers little
opportunity for relief of a monotonous
facade by a fine roof or any other fea-
ture of projection from the flatness of
the wall plane, might make effective use
of copper for a rich cornice and parapet,
the same material, or bronze, being re-
peated in the other details as the com-
position may suggest, so as to carry a
thread of the motive through the design.
Or, again, marble could be used for a
more architectonic phrasing of the cen-
tres of interest: an elaborate entrance,
moulded column bases, window frames
to. distinguish the main story, etc. Still
more fitting for such purpose, it may be
thought, is moulded terra cotta. Yet,
as cast to resemble and substitute for
stone mouldings and carvings, it is,
esthetically speaking, wrong. In the
same category of errors is the casting
of large cornices, balustrades or such
matters, copied after stone, in concrete
poured into sand moulds and afterwards
secured in place. As to terra cotta,

however, when designed to bring out its
own virtues and proper expression, great
opportunities exist for harmonious com-
binations with concrete.

We have not progressed far enough
as yet with reinforced concrete for such
motives to be carried out in practice
with the routine accuracy of the preva-
lent modes of construction. There are
innumerable details in a modern build-
ing, all of which must be determined on
paper alone with completeness and cer-
titude, and the execution of which must
be marked with equal precision. The
handling of a building operation is re-
quired: tobe. first; ot alls on. a. strictly
commercial basis. Only after the accu-
mulation of much experience, therefore,
may we expect, for practical reasons
alone, to see concrete design attain half
the measure of its possibilities, and up
to the present time it has been mostly
confined to architectural problems of
simple character and engineering ones of
comparatively little complication, such
as factories. However, it is pushing out
gradually into larger fields.

CONCRETE ETHICS IN RELATION TO
PRESENT ENVIRONMENT.

Concrete, it would appear, should cer-
tainly provide the long-hoped for me-
dium for creative design, untrammeled
by convention, as, on the contrary, all
work must be which is confined to ma-
terials that have been so exhaustively
worked over. Yet it cannot be said that
many designs of pronounced beauty have
as yet: been: executed. It must be sreé-
membered that progress in style forma-
tion is evolutional. Evolution, as we
know, never goes by leaps and bounds.
Even when there is some radical change
in thought or habit, external form will
only conform by gradual elimination. A
new material, revolutionary in certain
constructive principles, must in the end
produce a complete system of design, a
pronounced architectural style. How-
ever, such a development may take a
long time. Especially in this present
age, conception must wait on practica-
bility and economy. The effective range
of conceptive design is limited by the
external and positive influences that de-

264

termine structural development and
architectural preferences at large. In
other words, this problem should be con-
sidered not merely in the light of its
own logic, but with the realization that
results may only be arrived at in terms
of present needs and appreciations.

Thus we may have convinced our-
selves of the correctness of the thesis,
namely, that the conventional form
handed down to us in the motives of
articulated stone and timber architecture
should be abandoned, root and branch,
because entirely without relation to mon-
olithic construction; yet further consid-
eration may convince us that too much
radicalism is barren of good results and
that we cannot break too suddenly with
established ideas. The instinct of design
must be relied upon chiefly to discover
the most promising roads to travel.
However, in such a matter knowledge
of conditions assists and gives precision
to instinctive feeling.

It is a first principle of architectural
expression that its form should articu-
late structure; should be externally in

harmony with the real construction, ex-

pressing, not contradicting, it. Yet we
know that this theory must be compro-
mised with in all typically modern con-
structions. It cannot be adhered to
nowadays with the literalness of the days
of simple masonry and timber building.

In small structures of two or three
stories, residences mostly, we are still
fortunate in having a simple problem in
this respect, but seldom in any other
class of building. It is not only the sky-
scraper that is of skeleton construction,
but churches, theatres, imposing hotels
and apartment houses are, most of them,
of the same type.

Modern conditions, then, compel some
modifications of the simple law of the
harmony of design. While architecture
will achieve its happiest results through
following the line of least resistance
offered by construction, there should be
the understanding that, though it may
not contradict the construction in an ir-
rational or unnecessary manner, it may
supplant the actual by an illusion of such
structural form as is in accord with and
in completion of, in an architectural

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

sense, the true but bald engineering fact.
To explain by definite citation: The act-
ual frame of a Gothic church or a fif-
teenth-century Florentine palace, to
name random examples, is such that a
work of art was possible through the
agency of design that beautified while
revealing the construction with entire
frankness and no disguise. Such qual-
ity, however, is lacking from the skele-
ton method which dominates modern
architecture. A twenty-five story build-
ing, with a steel frame of equidistant
verticals and horizontal members, en-
cased merely in the minimum of practi-
cal masonry and without pretense of any
further constructive system than the
naked truth, is a monstrosity and a pub-
lic offense. And yet many buildings of
this size and class in no way offend or
oppress us by overbearing ugliness, and,
at the same time, their usefulness is in
no wise diminished, all because their
facades have been given some composi-
tion and proportion of form that satisfy
the needs of eye and imagination. Of
course the accent given to certain stories
or other divisions or features whereby a
design is achieved is not a reflection of
any corresponding variation in the real
construction and little or none of rela-
tive plan values. Nor have the attached
pilasters, arches and other such matters
any meaning above that of pure fiction ;
it is beyond doubt all make-believe. It
is foolish, though, to condemn such a
process of design, under the circum-
stances, provided the apparent construc-
tion as presented in the design is ra-
tional and consistent, its special accents
always such as convey impressions of a
construction that might logically be de-
veloped and similarly accented if the
walls were solid, or at least had greater
reality than that of a protective curtain.
However, we accept this anomaly so we
should find no fault with the illusion,
merely as such, but only when it ceases
to be an illusion of things real, of con-
sistent meaning and of artistic value.
While it is particularly to masonry
veneered steel construction that these
questions of architectural virtue are per-
tinent, reinforced concrete design can-
not consider itself free from the neces-

ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION IN A NEW MATERIAL. 265

‘sity of compromise with them. The

same commercial system is at work de-
manding a reduction of the constructive
composition to the simplest form of
skeleton consistent with the plan desired.
The vogue of reinforced concrete has
so far been mostly a commercial one,
and has been influenced largely by
the great bearing strength possessed by
the system in light sections and long
spans. As a consequence, the skeleton
frame in concrete offers no greater body
of material, and sometimes less, than the
steel frame after the latter is encased in
its fireproofing. The same hopelessly
monotonous repetition of units is apt
to be determined by forces quite be-
yond the control of the designer. There-
fore there will be the same necessity of
inventing some supplementary compo-
sition if buildings of this major class are
to be done architecturally in concrete.

True, the concrete building retains, in
any case, a closer bond between appear-
ance and reality, because, while the older
type is a construction of two distinct
materials without a natural co-ordina-
tion of function, the other is of one sub-
stance within and without. Supports,
floors, walls, roof, it is all one mass; the
surface and the constructive material are
the same. Therefore a curtain wall 1s
not so disunited from its framework,
and such fictional expression as it may
be inclined to indulge in need not and
should not be as radical a departure from
fact as conditions make desirable in the
stone or brick and terra cotta clothing
of gaunt and rigid frames of steel.

We need not, however, in one con-
struction more than the other, consider
ourselves forced, because of any virtue
in absolute adherence to truth, to ex-
press outwardly the actual equality of
each vertical member and floor line; the
rudimentary features and monotony in
all its horror. Grouping of stories or
bays and the use of all the conventional
architectural paraphernalia we may find
of service, if modified in accord with
the new material; all this is legitimate,
whatever our material or constructive
system. It is the necessary sort of thing
if we are still anxious to produce archi-
tecture from the unpromising data of

column and girder framework. There-
fore, we do not think it is reasonable to
expect that we should abolish at one
stroke all accepted conventions of form.
Where, to retain them, would take us
beyond the proper scope of our plastic
medium let us fall back on the old ma-
terials, working out harmonious motives
for their combination. This modified
point of view will better sustain a prop-
erly ordered evolution which may event-
ually work out a closer harmony be-
tween construction and outward form.
Architecture is full of small deceptions
to cloak reality when this is crude and
mechanical; though there should never
be a line or bit of material without pur-
pose and value in the expressive scheme
of the design.

We should remember that the orders
and other primary motives have, by
their varied adaptability, become in a
measure disassociated from their origins
and from narrow restriction to those oc-
casions where their actual and apparent
functions are co-extensive. Architec-
ture has for a long time used them large-
ly as convenient symbols or notes of in-
dication. The purist may say the indica-
tion is one only of decadence; not neces-
sarily so when we consider that our prob-
lems lie in the conditions of to-day, not
of yesterday.

The characteristics of concrete make
certain clear demands, which we attempt-
ed to define above, and it is clearly req-
uisite that features of stone or timber be
not imitated unless such quality as be-
longs distinctly to either of these mate-
rials and to them alone be extracted; or
unless we compromise the matter and
veneer a concrete shell with jointed ma-
sonry. Otherwise such proportions and
profile must be used as will not give the
impression of an inappropriate copy of
forms that could be rationally constructed
only of built-up and jointed pieces.

But we cannot get along entirely with-
out columns and entablatures, attached
orders and other familiar devices, if we
are to give some architectural dignity to
skeleton framed buildings of great area
or height, whether the frame be a rein-
forced concrete monolith or of riveted
steel sections. Therefore, we think that

266 TT ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD,

considerations to other arguments in fa-
vor of the motives of incrustation and the
use of architectural accents in other ma-

we need not have false pride, but that,
for an invasion of the domain of masonry
design, we should use the smoother meth-

ods of finish that closely resemble the _ terials.
texture of dressed stone and in the form Such a course is better than a forced

of design phrases invented for stone, pro- straining after originality. We should be
vided they may be rendered practically in satisfied if unnecessary imitation is

Danse Osa

DETAIL OF THE MONOLITH BUILDING.
West 34th Street, New York.
(By courtesy of Architects’ and Builders’ Ma,az-ne.)

the material and if not, introducing stone, avoided and if a little spontaneous
terra cotta, or metal with the evident thought and greater consistency of de-
purpose of meeting the requirements of tail be suggested here and there. We
decided and formal composition. As was should attempt then to so dissect and re-
pointed out above, the impracticability of compose old formulae as to infuse some
elaborate form work forces simplicity of of the plasticity and monocast feeling of
surface projections upon concrete, and, the material. There are opportunities
therefore, adds the weight of practical enough for the genius of design to assert

ARCHITECTURAL EXPRESSION IN A NEW MATERIAL.

itself in a gradual transmutation of style
without having recourse abruptly to an
absolute divorce from tradition. It is
necessary though to divest ourselves of
the conception of derived motives as
complete. and unchangeable. On _ the
contrary, we should view them element-
ally so as to discern whatever is in them
belonging to art at large and free from
the necessary implications of any one ma-
terial.

In some problems of monolithic build-
ing, it is quite obvious and we may say
has already been demonstrated, that con-
struction may be sufficiently and truth-
fully stated and the material frankly ex-
pressed, while quite in harmony with
present appreciations of form. A few
small houses of decided beauty and en-
tire consistency as to the expression of
the material have already been designed
and more in greater variety of motive
will surely follow. The structural make-
up, however, is of the simplest. Low
walls, a good roof, projecting wings and
porches or recessed loggias provide ma-
terial for a sufficient composition and
study of proportion ; for the rest, textural
surface and a small amount of appropri-
ate ornament is all that is wanted. The
walls will usually be plain, but piers of
slight projection giving an arrangement
of panels may occasionally be warranted.
The reinforcing motive is scarcely de-
veloped in exterior expression except in
that the walls are thinner than concrete
walls could be otherwise; but, as reveals
may be the same as usual, there is no de-
parture from the familiar on this ac-
count. The floors may be of one con-
struction or another without need for a
reflection in the design. The differen-
tiation from frame, brick and stone is
mainly in surface form and is achieved
by falling back upon a severe though ap-
propriate simplicity of design, practically
eliminating all mouldings and, in place of
elaboration of window framings, porches,
balconies and other features with usual
motives, making use of mosaic themes
and by inlaying tile or other bits of color
pattern. The surface treatment should
be the brush and wash method exposing
the aggregates and producing a pleasing
and broken tone of color which may

267

either be in warm earth shades or the
cool grey of blended black and white
stone chips.

Some charming results are possible on
such lines while expressive in a direct
manner of the properties of the material
and radically independent of tradition
and convention, though the character of
certain styles is almost unavoidably re-
flected to some degree. There is a
praiseworthy simplicity and directness
about such work that is refreshing after
the garish artificiality so often met with
and is something much needed for the
healthfulness of present architecture.
The plastic opportunities of concrete
mean, too, the regaining of some of the
lost feeling of handicraft. The material
possesses an essential instinct for the
hand-made in distinction to the machine-
finished. It is naturally more readily in
domestic than in commercial or monu-
mental work that this feeling may find a
ready outlet, and the former alone is cer-
tainly a large field. To what extent con-
crete will invade the latter class of build-
ings is as yet problematical. However,
in the writer’s belief, the future will wit-
ness a successful effort at enlarging the
apparent limits of concrete expression
to include such problems which an eco-
nomically strong position promises to
place squarely before the architecture
of the future.

When we turn from a rural setting
to city streets, from the simplicity and
refinement, which it is, there above all,
desirabie to express, to the forinality,
the pretentious size and multiplicity of
units, characteristic of commercial or
semi-commercial building, we are face to
face with quite a different design prob-
lem. Reduction of composition to the
simplest terms means too barren a treat-
ment for the scale, the repetitions and
lack of relief involved. Surface treat-
ment alone, however pleasing, will
not entirely answer. The _ tile-mosaic
motive should not be used indiscrimi-
nately but with the discernment we
would show for something rare and del-
icate, just as we would not care for
flower gardens that covered the whole
landscape. Wrought meta! accessories
and enriched fenestration will be help-

268

ful. Still, what is required in the class
of composition we refer to, is form and
organic proportion. For such necessi-
ties we shall certainly have to be de-
pendent, for a while at any rate, upon
classic form, that is to say, upon the
externals of the already developed archi-
tectural styles.

Very few designs have as yet been
made, for buildings of extensive size,
that announce with any positiveness the
nature of concrete, particularly as ex-
pressed in reinforced construction. Most
of the office buildings erected in the new
method have been faced with brick and
stone. The few that have ventured to
depend solely upon concrete have kept
pretty close to the precedents of ma-
sonry, not attempting a more direct ex-
pression of the individuality of concrete
than to avoid an excessive pronounce-
ment of stone. The Gloeker building in
Pittsburg may be instanced. The Mon-
olith building in New York shows, how-
ever, a well studied effort to design de-
tail more conformable to the nature of

concrete.
rein-

A bold attempt to emphasize
forced concrete characteristics was made
in the Marlborough-Blenheim at Atlan-
tic City. Though the result may be in
some respects bizarre, it is also success-
ful in presenting a forceful essay in log-

ical design. The Ponce de Leon Hotel
at St. Augustine, built many years ago,
is a beautiful rendering of one aspect of
concrete—heavy walled construction
with brick, terra cotta and timber as ac-
cessories for the featuring of the de-
sign, concrete being a sort of back-
ground material.

Even in the most individualistic work,
the past has been drawn upon freely for
minor motives at least. It has been usual
to seek precedent in styles that delighted
in color incrustation and excelled in tile
work, mosaic and stucco—Persia, Ara-
bia, Byzantium, and, we may add, Venice,
Yet Venice we can but feel is too fragile
a flower for the climate of this unpoetic
age; and the others are not great archi-
tectures. We have also turned quite
naturally to such other styles as were

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

distinctly monolithic and plastic in ex-
pression: to Egypt and the Spanish
Missions of California. And just as
these two are as opposite poles in feeling,
so are they both too foreign to our pres-
ent mode of thought and environment,
for it is to be artistic wisdom to repro-
duce them unless in their own climatic
surroundings. We may look to them for
hints and extract ideas that we can use,
if we are clever enough, but literal re-
production is as ill advised as is the imi-
tation of other materials.

The foundations of useful inspira-
tion, then, belong to eras that are
gone and with which we are not now
particularly in sympathy. While the
same is true to an extent of every style
of the past, yet our present ideas, our
mode of life and mould of thought find
easy and fairly natural expression
through adaptions from the various off-
shoots of the Renaissance.

The manifestation of l'art nouveau,
while having more force in the allied
plastic arts than in architecture, yet has
essayed expression in the latter. Quite
independently of reinforced concrete
suggestion it has created forms highly
imbued with the feeling of this material,
though in the judgment of the sober
minded, falling usually into inconsequent
excesses or trivialities. It would be in-
teresting to seek out in what respects
this emancipated style may be expected
to contribute to creative design in con-
crete.

The problem of the future as to con-
crete—and in the latent originality of
this material is the chief hope of future
style—is to develop the suggestions we
may glean from the barbaric styles of
color and incrustation along new lines
and at the same time to create, consist-
ently with structure and material, mo-
tives of form and line, both in concrete
itself and in combinations with other ma-
terials, that will save to us the classic
sense of rhythm; our inherited desire for
architecture that is dignified and grace-
ful—formal where required, beautiful
in any case.

H. Toler Booraem.

The New University of California

Among the American universities
there is none which is growing much
more rapidly than is the University of
California, and there is none whose
growth is more significant and promis-
ing. This institution is the State uni-
versity of California; but it has char-
acteristics which distinguish it sharply
from the other State universities. Just
as the State of California claims to
be, and with justice, an imperial
State, just as the city of San Fran-
cisco claims to have, and with jus-
tice, certain traits of a metropolitan
city, so the University of California,
situated across the bay from the city of
San Francisco, is destined to be some-
thing more than a provincial college.
No one who has considered candidly the
differences in social, moral and _ intel-
lectual outlook between the Californian
and the inhabitant either of the Middle
West or of the Eastern States, can doubt
that California will develop in the course
of time a society and a civilization differ-
ing in certain essential respects from
that of the rest of the country; and it is
extremely probable that the most char-
acteristic expression of California’s pe-
culiar phase of Americanism will be
found in the intellectual sphere. This
prophecy can hardly be justified by any
actual achievement; but it exists in the
minds of the enlightened Californians
as a living aspiration. They believe in
the future of their State in the way that
is quite impossible for the Nebraskan
or the New Yorker; and they are justi-
fied in this belief, because the bounda-
ries of California are not arbitrary, be-
cause its traditions are unique, and be-
cause, with its mountains and its coast,
its mineral and its agricultural wealth,
its industrial and its commercial possi-
bilities, and its peculiar advantages as a
place in which to live, its statehood is
something more than a legal expres-
sion. So the Californian is constantly
preparing and working for a future
which shall justify the imperial promise

of his State; and among the institutions
which are being wrought pre-eminently
under the influence of this larger out-
look, the University of California must
be counted as not the least: important.
When a State assumes the responsi-
bility for the income and the welfare of
a university, the consequence usually is
that the institution so supported is
obliged to get along without private
benefactions. The liberal millionaire
generally bestows his gifts upon institu-
tions which cannot subsist or increase
without an endowment, and which be-
come, consequently, at once an evidence
and a memorial of individual generosity.
Such, however, has not been the case
with the University of California. It
owes much to the State, but it also owes
much to the benefactions of well-to-do
Californians; and for this reason it be-
comes peculiarly representative. It is
neither merely an official institution; and
its efficiency and standing are not im-
paired by the perfunctory service which
State institutions often command, and
the meager rations on which they are
obliged to subsist. Neither is it an in-
stitution which is less representative, be-
cause it is too much the issue of the gen-
erous aspirations of one man. It com-
bines the authority which is derived
from its official allegiance to the State,
with the freedom and flexibility which
are contributed by its affiliation with
Californians of wealth and intelligence.
It has the advantage of a strong and
opulent competitor in the Leland Stan-
ford, Jr., University; but it is not han-
dicapped in this competition by the want
of friends as liberal, if not as plethoric,
as the Stanford family. It subsists, so
far as American universities go, upon a
unique combination of private and
public support. The smallest taxpayer
may be interested in it, because it is
partly maintained by State appropria-
tions, while at the same time many
wealthy benefactors have already
scratched their names on its memorial

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Berkeley, Cal.

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271

THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

272

tablets. If this happy mixture of official
and unofficial backing can be continued
indefinitely, it should in the end give the
university a standing as unique as is
the source of its income and property.
Doubtless the divided nature of its sup-
port also has its rougher aspect and its
less agreeable consequences. Doubtless
it brings in its train some of the disad-
vantages as well as some of the advan-
tages of both the official and the un-
official universities. But whatever these
disadvantages, they are not too high a
price to pay for the enlarged opportu-
nities and promise which the university
obtains from the peculiarly representa-
tive nature of its support.

The new architectural plan of the
University of California can hardly be
understood except in reference to the
foregoing considerations. This plan has
been prepared under the influence of the
conditions and the ideas which I have
been attempting vaguely to describe. Its
builders and designers have, from the
beginning been imbued with the idea
that they were planning a university

which was to be the most important
single intellectual influence in the lives
of an ever-increasing number of Calli-

fornians. They wanted the university,
in its architectural expression, to be
worthy of its great future; and in this
aspiration they were sustained not only
by the State authorities, but by many
individual Californians, of whom the
most conspicuous was’ Mrs. George
Hearst. In thus building for the fu-
ture the directors of the university had
at once the advantage and the disadvan-
tage of being without any architectural
monuments which were worth preserv-
ing. The existing buildings, whether
because of individual merit or because
they pointed towards an admirable tradi-
tion, did not deserve perpetuation. The
university could build for the future,
unhandicapped by the past.

There are many people who will be-
lieve that the absence of an honorable
architectural tradition was more of a
disadvantage than an advantage, par-
ticularly in the case of an institution
like a university which lives so much
upon tradition. To such an institution

THE ARCHITECTURAL’ RECORD.

the past should be a guide rather than
a handicap. But this comment, what-
ever its general truth, is in the present
instance beside the mark. The directors
of the university were, as I have said,
anticipating and preparing for a future
of a scope and a significance out of all
keeping with its modest achievements ;
and under such conditions their freedom
from any specific architectural allegiance
was on the whole a palpable advantage.
They could found a local tradition more
appropriate than that of collegiate Gothic
or Colonial; and they could embody this
tradition in a plan which would be all
the more adequate, because it was not
necessary to preserve existing buildings
on their sites, or to consider specific
styles. The adequacy, the integrity and
the propriety of this plan would, if it
were well conceived, be proportionate to
the extent from which its designers were
emancipated from conditions which
were, after all, irrelevant, in view of the
much more magnificent promise of the
university’s future. No doubt an East-
ern university, such as Harvard or
Princeton, may anticipate a future of
much greater amplitude than its past,
while at the same time seeking to pre-
serve all that was valuable in its local
tradition. But Californians are united,
much more than are the inhabitants of
any Eastern State, by the future they are
building; and the really formative influ-
ence in that future is not a tradition so
much as an adequate and fruitful idea.

IME

It was under the influence of con-
siderations of this kind that the plan for
the greater University of California was
wrought. In 1go1 the first steps were
taken towards the architectural foun-
dation of the new university. The idea
was that such a university must receive
an architectural embodiment which
would really symbolize the larger aspi-
rations of its friends and its own increas-
ing intellectual authority; and under
the influence of this idea there was in-
stituted, with the assistance of Mrs.
George Hearst, an international compe-
tition. The object of this competition
was not so much to secure the designs

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THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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274

of a series of individual buildings, the
money for which had already been pro-
vided. What the overseers of the unti-
versity wanted was a general plan which
would take advantage of the superb
site at Berkeley, and which would pro-
vide an appropriate place for every im-
portant building that during the next
several generations the university was
likely to need. All these buildings
were to be subordinated in their location
and their design to one comprehensive
architectural scheme, which was to be
prepared after full consideration of
every relevant aesthetic and practical
consideration.

It will be remembered that the com-
petition was won by a Frenchman, M.
Emile Bénard, a very brilliant architec-
tural designer; and the plans which
secured for him the award were not the
least brilliant of his achievements. They
were, however, very much more in the
nature of preliminary sketches than fin-
ished drawings. They had been pre-
pared without the benefit of a visit to
Berkeley, and, besides, they were drawn
on the very small scale of fifty feet to the
inch. At a later date M. Bénard paid a
visit to Berkeley and drew up a revised
scheme, in which were embodied many
important modifications of his original
drawings and some decided improve-
ments; and it is this scheme which has
formed the basis of the plan according
to which the greater university is now
being constructed.

A preliminary plan, however, is one
thing, and its actual execution, under
conditions imposed by time, money and
a complex set of practical conditions,
quite another. It was neither possible nor
desirable that M. Bénard should remain
at Berkeley to undertake or even to
start the more difficult work of car-
rying out his own pians; and in
his place the university was _ for-
tunate enough to secure the services
of one of the few American architects
to whom such a task could be safely en-
trusted — Mr. John Galen Howard.
The position required something more
than architectural training, experience
and ability, because it was something
more than an architectural idea which

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

its incumbent was required to feel and to
realize. The architect of the new Uni-
versity of California had to be able, not
merely to design a group of buildings,
but to participate in the task of convert-
ing a small university of limited re-
sources and purposes, into one of the
greatest and most adequate educational
institutions in the United States. It was
in part an intellectually and_ socially
constructive task to which he was
called; and the fulfilment of such a task
requires, it scarcely need be said, an un-
usual combination of such qualities as
tenacity, courage, patience, flexibility and
intelligence. Mr. Howard has proved
his ability to devote himself with disin-
terested enthusiasm to the fulfilment of
an idea. Little by little he abandoned a
lucrative practice and an enviable posi-
tion in New York in order properly to
perform his work in California; and he
ended by establishing his residence in
Berkeley, where he undertook not only
to plan and design the new buildings, but
to organizie an architectural department
in the university. He has become the
representative in the counsels of the uni-
versity of the plastic arts in their relation
to the higher education, and he has con-
sistently proclaimed the importance of
aesthetic training as an element in the
consummate educational process. All
these additional tasks are a natural de-
velopment of the fundamental work to
which he was called, of designing in
detail the buildings of the new univer-
sity, for the great architectural plan
could never be loyally and intelligently
realized without a gradual increase of
architectural interest and understanding
on the part of the alumni, the friends
and the overseers of the university.

It is, however, Mr. Howard’s primary
work with which we are here chiefly
concerned; and that work in itself was
a sufficient test of Mr. Howard’s abili-
ties and his patient and loyal devotion to
his task. MM. Bénard’s plan remained,
even after the modifications, a sketch;
and the gradual fitting of a preliminary
sketch to a complex set of practical con-
ditions, without any impairment of the
original architectural idea is, as every
architect knows, the most trying part of

275

CALIFORNIA.

POLLY COE

THE NEW UNIVE

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‘VINHOMTITVO HO ALISHHAINO—LSVEHLAOS AHL WOU TIVINd “ITVH VINUOAIIVO

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ARCHITECTURAL KECORD.

CALIFORNIA HALL—LOBBY OF THE EXECUTIVE OFFICES.

CALIFORNIA HALL, TOWER HALL AND STAIRWAYS—UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
Berkeley, Cal. John Galen Howard, Architect.

THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 277.

the work. As a matter of fact, it was
soon found that M. Bénard’s plan had
to be followed more in the spirit than in
the letter. The salient characteristics of

and forming a central line of cleavage
from one end of the grounds to the other.
Two hardly less important axes, run-
ning north and south, cross the main

CALIFORNIA HALL, MAIN ENTRANCE—UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Berkeley, Cal.

his scheme have been described in the
following terms: It is “composed upon
a main avenue or esplanade, running
nearly east and west across the grounds
in the direction of their greatest length,

John Galen Howard, Architect.

esplanade at a considerable distance
apart. The more westerly of these lines
determines the centre of a great court,
which has received variously the names,
Fines Arts Square, Library Square and

278

the like, according, as in one sketch or
another, the museum or the library filled
the place of honor and gave the court
its special character. The more easterly
axis opens up a long vista towards the
south, which is terminated by the ath-
lethic field and the gymnasium, quite at
the southern boundary of the grounds.
The various academic buildings are
grouped upon these threes axes, in ac-
cordance with well-recognized principles
of formal architectural composition, yet
in such a manner as to give great variety
of aspect. The buildings are of various
sizes, of different scale, of diversified
outline, while the tendency of the archi-
tectural treatment is nevertheless con-
sistent in its generally classic char-
acter.

Such was the general composition
which Mr. Howard was asked to execute
when he assumed charge of the imme-
diate architectural future of the univer-
sity, and the salient features of this
scheme he has found no reason to. mod-
ify. The plan, in accordance with which
the new buildings of the university are
now being erected, includes an esplan-
ade, running in a general direction from
the west to the east, and two cross axes
running, of course, in the opposite direc-
tion.
profoundly changed, if not in its outlines,
at least in its application to the grounds.
The Bénard scheme demanded a drastic
and extremely expensive remodeling of
the site of the university. The main
axis, for instance, crossed a broad, shal-
low amphitheatre of hills, beyond the
crown of which the land falls away
sharply and irregularly. In order to get
the esplanade safely across these hills,
an immense amount of filling, grading
and cutting would have to be under-
taken, and certain of the natural beauties
of the site destroyed. In M. Bénard’s
plan these difficulties were met by a bold
device, which is described by Mr. How-
ard in the following words: “The crown
of the hill was in that design lowered
by an average depth of twelve feet, and
the succeeding declivity was crossed by
a broad causeway or bridge, lifted above
the adjoining levels to a height of seven-
teen feet. The grade line of the bridge

This plan has, nevertheless, been.

THE “ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

was maintained throughout the entire
length of the botanical garden, which
was shown as filled to an average depth
of ten feet. By these means virtually a
single magnificent slope at a very easy
inclination, held from the entrance at
Oxford street to the end of the espla-
nade.”

The architectural effect which would
have been obtained by means of the
Bénard plan might well have been mag-
nificent, but its expense was prohibitive
and its drawbacks serious. Mr. Howard
has sought to preserve the advantages of
the plan, while at the same time avoid-
ing its difficulties, by running the main
esplanade along a somewhat different
line. This line does not depart from the
same general direction, but it has the
great merit of preserving the entire mid-
dle portion of the grounds at approxi-
mately their present grade. It requires
a much smaller amount of filling and

_grading than does the line proposed by
“M. Bénard because it corresponds with

the natural central line of drainage, and
its establishment has revealed the possi-

. bility of retaining many minor beauties

ofthe site from the beginning to the
end. It willbe useless to trace this line
in detail from one end of the grounds
to the other, because it would require
either a visit to the site of the university
or a detailed topographical map in order
to appreciate its advantages; but an ex-
amination of the illustration of the
model which accompanies this article will
disclose how naturally and snugly the
plan has been fitted to the configuration
of the ground. That site naturally di-
vides itself into four parts. Of these the
central portion is by far the largest and
most important, lending itself readily, as
it does, to the construction of a num-
ber of monumental buildings, properly
grouped along a salient line. The land
to the west forms a natural approach to
that group, separating slightly from the
town and giving it the seclusion which
is appropriate to a university surrounded
by a modern American suburb. The
hills to the east afford a majestic natural
emphasis to the climax of the composi-
tion. Finally, to the south, just aside
from the path of learning, yet closely

279

THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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THE SARCIT BCTURAL “RECORD:

SOME OF THE SPLENDID TREES ON THE
UNIVERSITY GROUNDS.

joined thereto and playing its own part
in relation to the essential task of the

university, lie the fields to be devoted to

athletics. In short, the plan, in its relation
to the grounds, is summed up by Mr.
Howard in the following terms, borrowed
from domestic architecture: “The house,
consisting of the most important aca-
demic building, has its forecourts and
garden to the west, its secluded retreat
to the east and its play-ground to the
south.”

ii.

Another respect in which Mr. Howard
has been obliged to modify the Bénard
plan radically is in the location of the
various buildings. The sites selected for
the buildings should obviously be deter-
mined rather by considerations of con-
venience than by strictly architectural
reasons. It makes no difference to the
effectiveness of an architectural scheme,
in case a building situated in a particular
spot is called a library rather than a mu-
seum, provided it adequateiy occupies its
site. The library, consequently, has been
shifted from its position in the Bénard
plan to a more central location, midway
between the two cross axes, where it will

have an exceedingly fine architectural
effect, and where abundant room will be
provided for subsequent growth. The
humanities group of buildings, including
belles-lettres,- languages, -history, juris-
prudence and the like, would be arranged
immediately about the library. On ‘the
opposite side of the main esplanade, thus
serving as the architectural balance of
the library, is the museum; and if the
museum is devoted to natural history
and ethnology, as well as to art, the
buildings occupied by those branches
would be grouped around the museum as
a centre. Inasmuch, however, as these
and other buildings, the library excepted,
only exist in the realm of project, their
location cannot be absolutely determined
by Mr. Howard’s plan any more than by
that of M. Bénard’s. Certain logical and
convenient arrangements can “be sug-
gested; but the final decision can only
be made when the means are available
for construction. So far, the only build-
ings actually erected are California Hall,
which serves as an administration build-
ing and as a group of lecture rooms; and
the Mining Building, funds for the erec-
tion of which were provided by Mrs.

HEARST MEMORIAL BUILDING—AN
INTERIOR COURT.
University of California.

THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,

George Hearst. These two buildings,
while of the utmost practical value in the
work of the university, do not occupy
important places in the architectural
scheme, The Greek Theatre has also
been partly completed, owing to the lib-
erality of Mr. William R. Hearst; but
the Greek Theatre occupies a secluded
site back of the main group of buildings,
so that its construction does not help the
imagination towards a projected realiza-
tion of the whole scheme. The library
will probably be the first building of
salient architectural importance to be
built; and: as: soon as-it-and its, coni-
panion, the museum, are completed, the
plan will take visible shape and its archi-
tectural and. practical advantages more
fully realized. In its present form this
plan has cost its creator an amount of
detailed architectural study, of patient
and exhaustive investigation into practi-
cal conditions, and of imaginative archi-
tectural invention and anticipation which
is almost unique in American architect-
ural practice.

The buildings already completed, few
as they are, have, however, set the note
and established the style. This note and
style must be maintained unless the en-
tire plan is to be thrown away and a new
beginning made; and as nothing of the
kind will happen during the present gen-
eration, it may be assumed that the style
will become too well established there-
aiter to be disturbed... That a certain
style, related fundamentally to the classic
tradition in architecture, has been adopt-
ed for the buildings of the University of
California is a matter of prime archi-
tectural interest, not only for the archi-
tectural future of California, but for the
future of collegiate architecture in all
the Pacific States. No doubt the adop-
tion of such a style was practically im-
plied when a French architect was
awarded the prize in the original com-
petition. No doubt it was in a sense
implied when the decision was reached
to submit the future building of the
university to the restrictions of a single
plan, because such a plan necessarily
brings with it the formal arrangement
of a group of monumental classic build-
ings. The extreme importance of such

281

a decision none the less remains a mat- ,
ter for explanation and discussion, while
at the same time the complexion of the
whole question is gravely modified by
the peculiar character which Mr. How-
ard has bestowed upon such examples of
the style as have already been erected.
The bearings of this question demand
some consideration preliminary to an
account of the buildings already erected.

It has been stated that under the Bé-
nard plan the buildings were to be “of
various sizes, of different scale, of diver-
sified outline, while the tendency of the
architectural treatment remains, never-
theless, consistent in its generally classic
character”; and this description remains
as true of the plan after Mr. Howard’s
modifications as before. The most sig-
nificant matter for controversy is sug-
gested by the description of the build-
ings as consistent in their generally
Classic: character. A’ certain’ phase: of
opinion in California has been inclined
to question the advisability of erecting a
group of buildings, consistently classic
in design, to provide a habitation and
an architectural symbol for the most
representative Californian institution of
learning. Californians, as I have al-
ready remarked, are justifiably proud of
their State, and are very much attached
to its peculiar local characteristics. The
patriotic conscience of a New Yorker
may be satisfied in case he can discover
in a building or in a painting some slight
infusion of an American condition or
point of view. He looks forward to the
foundation, not of a local metropolitan
architectural tradition, but one which
shall have certain national characteris-
tics. But the Californian is not satisfied
with such anticipations of a national art
or literature. To satisfy their existing
demands, local art, architecture and lit-
erature must rather be Californian than
national; and this demand has already
had a considerable effect upon architec-
ture in California. They want buildings
adapted to the Californian landscape,
appropriate to the peculiar character of
Californian trees and foliage, and some-
how expressive of Californian ways of
living and point of view. How can such
a demand as this be reconciled with the

282

erection by their most representative
State university of a group of buildings
consistently classic in character?

The attempts which have been made
by Californian architects to satisfy the
demand for local architectural forms
have looked in two directions. The
more successful of these two experi-
ments consists of a type of picturesque
shingled suburban and country house,
which is a peculiar and legitimate result
of Californian ways of living and of
Californian building methods and ma-
terials. Obviously, however, such build-
ings as these are of no use to an archi-
tect who is designing a group of monu-
mental collegiate buildings. The other
essay in the direction of a Californian
architectural style has consisted in the
imitation of the old Mission buildings;
and this experiment has been responsi-
ble for a truly appalling number of
flimsy and fantastic plaster copies of the
sober conventual buildings of the early
Franciscan ‘friars. [t.1s,: however,

hardly fair to measure the permanent
value of the Mission style as an appro-

priate element in Californian architec-
ture by the frivolous and exasperating
popular version thereof; and as a matter
of fact, it is not necessary todo. so.
Stanford University offers an example
of the application of the Mission style to
a group of collegiate buildings; and this
attempt to give a local character to the
buildings of a great Californian univer-
sity was projected at least by one of the
greatest of American architects. A bet-
ter example could not be desired of the
possibilities for this purpose of the forms
used in the early conventual and ec-
clesiastical buildings; and after an in-
spection of the issue of this experiment,
we do not believe there can be any doubt
@s- 40 the: verdiet-: . Both from the
esthetic and the practical point of view,
the Mission style is very badly adapted
to the requirements of a modern Amer-
ican university, be it situated in Califor-
nia or on Morningside Heights.

This verdict is founded on a suff-
ciently obvious group of considerations.
The old Missions were, of course, used
for conventual and ecclesiastical pur-
poses; and the attempt to adapt a con-

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD:

ventual and ecclesiastical style to the
needs of modern museums, libraries,
laboratories and lecture rooms must nec-
essarily be a forced attempt. It must
end either in the mutilation of the style
or in the sacrifice of certain essential
practical requirements. The plan of a
library, museum or a lecture room can
with difficulty be adapted to the forms
of Mission architecture. All of them
demand an amount of light and a dis-
tribution of the floor space which results
naturally in a different sort of design;
and as a matter of fact, we understand
that certain of the buildings erected for
these purposes at Palo Alto are very
inconvenient places in which to work.
Nor is this all. Another series of diffi-
culties have to be faced in case any at-
tempt is made to plan a number of Mis-
sion buildings in such a relation, one to
another, as will make either for con-
venience or for unity of architectural
effect. The Mission style, like other
conventual and_ ecclesiastical _ styles,
lends itself admirably to the grouping of
a few buildings around a court or en-
closure; and if a modern American uni-
versity were made up of a collection of
colleges, every one of which preserved
its pedagogical and architectural au-
tonomy, each of these colleges could be
planned and designed along the lines ot
one of the old Missions. But an Amer-
ican university is a very different thing.
It consists of one big college, divided
for convenience into a number of differ-
ent departments. The buildings in which
the work of these several departments is
performed should, as far as possible, be
grouped according to one comprehensive
and coherent plan. Such a plan would
demand not merely many buildings, but
buildings of many different sizes, ex-
posures, aspects and heights; and the
attempt to adapt the Mission style to the
exigencies of such a plan would tax the
greatest architect beyond his power.
The fact is, of course, that the rude
but charming archaism of the old Mis-
sions is wholly out of keeping with the
needs of modern American building;
and the idea of using them as the point
of departure for contemporary Califor-
dian architecture is merely an evidence

THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 283

John Galen Howard, Architect.

SOUTH FRONT—UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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284

of architectural immaturity. Califor-
nians are, as I have said, tied one to
another by the future they are in the act
of building. Their attachment to the Mis-
sions, and to the life and intellectual out-
look therein embodied, is not historical;
it is wholly sentimental and literary.
The one way to impart a local charac-
teristic to their architecture is to make
it embody local and contemporary needs
and conditions. To be sure, it may em-
body local and contemporary needs and
conditions without any defiance of the
past, and with apparent regard for the
future; but in any event the claims of the
present are paramount. The traditions of
the past, from which assistance is asked,
must be appropriate; and the future,
which is to be built, must be the natural
outgrowth of existing needs and ideals.

The official architectural plans of the
University of California are character-
ized at once by fidelity to an appropriate
architectural tradition, by a confident
and aspiring outlook towards a larger
but not too remote future, and, above all,
by a paramount solicitude ‘for the actual

needs of the university. When the com-
petition was originally held, and when
the Bénard plan was adopted, it was, of
course, entirely possible that the plans

might have miscarried. Through the
attempt to realize too much of its mag-
nificent prospects at the present time, the
university might have tied itself to a
grandiose and rigid architectural scheme,
upon which much money would have
been spent for years, only, perhaps, to
be wasted in the end. But the men who
have since been responsible for the arch-
itectural direction of the university have
skilfully avoided the pitfalls into which
they might have been betrayed by the
adoption of a big architectural scheme.
The plan has been modified in such a
way that its gradual realization does not
require an expensive re-formation of the
university site or a rigid distribution of
the university buildings. At the same
time, while being made flexible, with re-
gard to the future, it has also been eman-
cipated from an embarrassing allegiance
to,a narrow or a rigid architectural tra-
dition. The plan has been stripped of
the merely French accessories, with which

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

it was originally entangled. The great
purpose has been to make every build-
ing which was erected the best possible
expression of existing needs and condi-
tions; and if these buildings embodied
an architectural tradition or are ar-
ranged in reference to a greater archi-
tectural future, that is because the needs
of the present cannot be satisfied except
by means of such ties and anticipations.
The truth is, as has already been sug-
gested, that the adoption of a consistently
classical architectural tradition was ne-
cessitated when the Bénard plan was
selected. A collection of monumental
buildings cannot be effectively grouped
around two spacious courts or along an
esplanade unless they are designed in
conformity with the classic architectural
tradition; and the management of the
university, when it made that selection,
was well advised from every point of
view. It was a decision which made
both for practical efficiency and for the
architectural education of the students
and of the community; and it was a de-
cision which promised the best aesthetic
results. It can be completely justified
as the outcome of a sound conception of
the architectural future of California.
The classic architectural ideal and
forms, so far from being inappropriate
to a Californian university, are peculiar-
ly well adapted to the Californian land-
scape and to the Californian intellectual
and moral tradition. California is more
closely allied to Latin civilization than is
any other part of the American republic.
It was settled by people of Spanish de-
scent and while the tie which connects
California with the missions and the
friars is merely literary and sentimental,
there exists a much more significant con-
nection with the social tradition repre-
sented by the early Mexican inhabitants.
The American conquerors actually in-
herited little from the people they dis-
possessed, but after a prolonged occu-
pation of the Californian country, they
have tended to exhibit some characteris-
tics which are more Latin than they are
Anglo-Saxon. Under the influence of
the Californian open-air life and really
temperate climate, they are gayer so-
cially, more expansive and much more

THE: - NEW -UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA,

willing to spend time in giving pleasure
to themselves and to other people. All
this is making for a livelier use of the
intelligence and for a more genuine and
fruitful interest in the arts, and it is this
characteristic which allies them with the
Latin peoples: “It: does net «tie: them
specifically to the Mexicans or to the
Spaniards, but it does tie them to the
Latin tradition—to the tradition which
makes for a socialized rather than merely
an individualized art, and for an inno-
cent and well-tempered love of beautiful
things. In the course of time the Cali-
fornians should be able to give a more
genuine and a more idiomatic expres-
sion to the Latin or the classic tradition
in art and architecture than will their
fellow countrymen further east. The
classic tradition in style is necessarily
an artificial thing, except among a peo-
ple who are socially expatsive, and who
without any sense of mutilation can sub-
ordinate themselves to acceptable con-
ventions of social expression and com-
munication.

It should be added, also, that the Cali-
fornian landscape, in the settled neigh-
borhoods, is peculiarly adapted to a
classic type of building. The whole
country lying between the Sierras and
the sea, except that near the highest
ridges of the coast range, is composed of
extremely simple elements. It is not
rough, broken, rocky and unkempt. On
the contrary, it has comparatively few
plains and levels, and those which do
exist are usually gentle in ascent, while
at the same time being firm and bold
both in outline and modelling. A land-
scape of this kind demands a type of
buildings which has been simplified in
the classic spirit, and which reaches its
effect by the economical but spirited use
of the essential architectural means and
elements. The typical Californian
countryside, indeed, seems peculiarly
adapted to the habitation of a highly civ-
ilized human sociiety. It can be con-
verted to the uses of such a society not
merely without any mutilation of its pe-
culiar beauties, but with a positive en-
hancement thereof. It lends itself by
its contours, its levels, its foliage and
its climate to formal architectural treat-

285

ment; and in this respect the site of the
University of California at Berkeley
is no exception to the general rule. It
is, perhaps, more heavily wooded than is

the typical Californian landscape; and

it contains an unusual variety of natural
incident; but it is peculiarly adapted to
just the kind of development which the
architectural plan of the university pro-
poses. That plan, when it is carried out,
will not impair those natural beauties,
but will merely give them a more posi-
tive emphasis. The scale of the buildings
is fitted to the scale of the countryside
and of the trees. Their white walls and
tiled roofs will look particularly well in
the Californian sunshine and atmos-
phere. Their lay-out will take advan-
tage of the actual shape of ground, and
will lead naturally to the most interest-
ing points of view. A pervading sense of
beautiful natural surroundings will be
retained, in spite of the fact that one
may be walking through the squares
and the streets of a veritable city of
learning.

TY.

The writer, then, has no sympathy
with those Californians who object on
the score of propriety to the use for the
university of a consistently classical
group of buildings. Such a plan might,
as I have admitted, gone astray, but
if so, it would have gone astray only
because it was misapplied. An intelli-
gent and skillful use of the classical ar-
chitectural tradition and forms was pre-
cisely what was needed, and the exist-
ing architectural direction of the uni-
versity has made such a use of the tra-
dition, which was accepted, and of the
forms, which were adopted. The whole
program and method of procedure have
been dictated by sound reasoning and
appropriate ideas. Neither is ‘this a
small merit. In planning the architectural
future of a great university, everything
depends upon the adoption of a well-
considered policy, and one has only to
turn over in one’s mind the list of the
American universities in order to realize
what a small number of them have
ever adopted a policy of this kind.
A university cannot, like a _ public

286

building, be erected in a few years, and
as the outcome of an over-rigid archi-
tectural idea. It must be allowed to
grow, just as a human being must be
allowed to grow, but it should be guided
in its growth by proper and adequate
formative influences;: and that 1s “what

Pie ARCTIC Udell ki Onl:

sance; alti has. ‘been: taken..to: meat a
very simple, economical and even realis-
tic method of design. In fact Mr. How-
ard in his application of the classic tra-
ditions has reduced it to its essentials.
Ide. has treed it: irom any .tannerisim,
and has made it equivalent to a com-

HEARST MEMORIAL MINING BUILDING, DETAIL OF SOUTH FRONT—UNIVERSITY OF
CALIFORNIA,

Berkeley, Cal.

is being done in the case of the Univer-
sity of California.

The buildings which Mr. Howard has
already erected embody admirably the
spirit of the plan. They are designed in
the classic tradition, but that phrase has
been interpreted in its broadest sense.
The classic tradition has not been inter-
preted to mean either modern French or
Colonial orders, or the Italian Renais-

John Galen Howard, Architect.

pletely formed, strongly simplified de-
sign, expressive at once of vitality and

repose. Ornament of all kinds has been
used not merely with discretion, but al-
most with parsimony, yet the effect is
not austere because the essentials of
the designs have been so well handled.
In both California Hall and the Mining
Building one is immediately impressed
by the great dignity of their treatment,

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THE “ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD:

PROPOSED HALLS OF LAW AND OF PHILOSOPHY, WITH CALIFORNIA HALL (ALREADY
UNIVERSITY OF

Berkeley, Cal.

and their effect of dignity is due in part
to the fact that their design has been
worthily as well as skillfully planned.
Mr. Howard has never forgotten that
buildings erected for a university should
constitute a part, perhaps the most im-
portant part, of its means of esthetic

training. They should constitute not
merely a gracious influence in the lives
of the students, but one that is inform-
ing and elevating; and if the University
of California continues to build in the
spirit and with the success characteristic
of its beginning, there will be few uni-
versities in the country whose aspect and
appearance will lend a more effective
assistance to their essential task.
California Hall was the first of the
new buildings to be completed. Its
lower floor is used for lecture rooms,
and the second floor for the offices of the
university. It is constructed of a white
greyish granite, which is very much the
best building stone to be found on the
Pacific coast, and which is, indeed, one
of the very best stones to be found any-

where in the country. The architect
was exceptionally fortunate to obtain a
stone as white, as durable, and as inter-
esting in texture and color as is this
granite, and he has used it in a manner
which brings out all of its good quali-
ties. The stone is laid in alternate
courses of large and small blocks, there-
by giving an interesting pattern to the
walls of the building and a certain ele-
gance to its effect, a quality which is
very difficult to obtain with such a mate-
rial as granite. The stone also has the
advantage of cutting extremely well, so
that what little detail the architect has
used is sharply and effectively worked.
The way in which this detail has been
designed and rendered is indeed pecu-
liarly worth attention. The manage-
ment of the face of the building is an
extraordinary example of strong and re-
fined design, and so is the treatment of
the window frames. When confronted
by such a structure as this one is pos-
sessed by a sense of exhilaration. It has
body, it has breadth, and it has refine-

STR e TTT MI IT RT Te

THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 289

CALIFORNIA.

ment. Its admirable effect has not been
imposed upon its frame, and it does not
disguise its function, but is the direct
expression of the substance and the life
of the building.

The treatment of the interior is more
severe than that of the exterior, ~ dhe
rooms and the halls on the lower floor
have been designed for use and for use
only. The structural beams show where
they must, and the walls have merely
been painted a dull, warm yellow. The
severity of this treatment is, perhaps, a
little uncompromising, but on the upper
floor the aspect of things becomes more
gracious. The middle part of this floor
is used as a central hall leading to the
offices on the several sides. It is lighted
from above and the space so lighted has
been treated as a sort of a court, enclosed
by a row of columns. This arrangement
not only makes a very good use of the
available space, but it affords a chance
for an appropriate and interesting archi-
tectural effect. The effect itself, we
should say, is not quite so happy as the

COMPLETED AND ILLUSTRATED HEREIN) ON THE LEFT OF THE PICTURE.

John Galen Howard, Architect.

idea. It looks rather heavily rendered,
in as much as the court is situated rather
within than without the building. But
if it is lacking in elegance, it is not lack-
ing either in dignity or propriety.
About the Greek theatre, which is in
use without being actually completed, it
is scarcely time to write in detail. The.
money provided for its erection was suf-
ficient only to build the amphitheatre and
the screen. But the amphitheatre has
been left unfinished in rough concrete,
the colonnade with which it is to be
crowned has been omitted, and many
essential parts of the architectural de-
sign are not as yet even indicated in the
present appearance of the structure.
The day will come when this theatre,
both because of the peculiar beauty and
propriety of its location and because of
the arduous study which has been de-
voted to its design, will demand the most
exhaustive consideration from all disin-
terested students of architecture, but in
justice to the architect such consideration
should be postponed until the design is

290

really carried out. In the meantime it
may be premised that the theatre from
the practical standpoint has been a bril-
liant success. Its plan provides for the
gathering and dispersal of large num-
bers of spectators conveniently and rap-
idly. Moreover, those spectators, wher-
ever seated in the spacious amphitheatre,
can distinctly hear the words of a
speaker on the platform, and even when
that speaker is not unduly raising his
voice. The symphony concerts which

are given every winter can be heard, so

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD:

and its function, the Hearst Memorial
Mining Building is the most important
structure hitherto erected for the Greater
University. It was the first of the new
buildings to be planned, and the idea of
erecting such a building to the memory
of her husband was the idea, which in
Mrs. Hearst’s mind blossomed into the
plan now being carried out for the
new university; and in this instance
the personal motive was happily allied to
an idea of peculiar local and _ historical
propriety. Modern California originated

THE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY—UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

Berkeley, Cal.

it is stated, as well as in the best enclosed
auditorium. All this not only testifies to
the skill of the architect, but it opens an
interesting vista for the future of open-
air performances in California. It sug-
gests once again that the Californian, be-
cause of the resemblance of the dry cli-
mate, to the clear atmosphere of his State
to that of Greece, will have an opportun-
ity of reviving certain interesting aspects
of classical life such as is possessed by
the residents of no other part of Amer-
ica and very few parts of Europe.

Both because of its size, its situation

John Galen Howard, Architect.

in the mining industry; and it is abso-
lutely appropriate that its State univer-
sity should first of all rear a building
which is not only a memorial to one of
the pioneer miners, but which also is the
most carefully planned and completely
equipped building in the world for the
study of technical mining processes.

In the plan and design of such a
building the architect could learn little
of value from his predecessors. He was
not building a familiar type, such as a
hospital or a library, and consequently
he was obliged in collaborating with the

THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

head of the Mining Department, Profes-
sor Christy, to make what was substan-
tially a novel plan. Inasmuch, however,
as they were working largely in the
dark, and as a future generation might
have either different needs or better
ways of meeting the old ones, the plan
was made extremely elastic. The main
structure was built, as far as possible,
as a mere shell whose interior partitions
could be torn out, readjusted or rebuilt
without impairing the strength or hurt-
ing the appearance of the whole edifice.
All the chimneys, for instance, most sub-
ject to wear and tear, are planned inde-
pendent of the structure proper. Any or
all of these chimneys can be torn down
to the foundations without any injury
to the building or its equipment.

The dominating idea in the plan of
the building was, in the words of its
architect, “to keep the administrative and
more public parts of the building in the
front or south portion. Of these the
most important artistically is the great
memorial vestibule museum. It occu-
pies the centre of the south facade, and
is lighted not only by the three great
arches, but also three low domes in the
roof. From this vestibule rise to right
and left the grand staircases, which lead
to the laboratories and the drafting
rooms. Within everything is workaday,
substantial and convenient, but totally
devoid of ornament. It is a mining
building first, last and all the time. Yet
the building is intended to take on a
progressively more civilized aspect and a
more monumental beauty, as one passes
from the workshops in the rear towards
the public portions in the front; and it
sounds its highest note of dignity and
impressiveness in the great museum ves-
tibule, where the memorial motive is
most clearly yet still reservedly an-
nounced.”

It is not often that an American archi-
tect is able or willing to express himself
emphatically and candidly in respect to
his own work; but Mr. Howard has done
precisely this in relation to the Hearst
Memorial Mining Building. Assur-
edly the transcription of his own
words will constitute the most helpful
commentary on the design of the build-
ing. Writing almost six years ago, when

291

the corner stone was laid, he described
his purpose in the foliowing terms:
“The exterior treatment is of extremely
simple, dignified character, based upon
the classic tradition, but strongly influ-
enced by the naif and charming work
of the Spanish Fathers in California, and
like that work depending largely for its
effect upon the careful proportioning of
its voids and solids and upon its low
roofs of heavy terra cotta tile overhang-
ing broad unornamented surfaces of
wall. The aim has been to give expres-
sion to the character of a college of min-
ing engineering as distinguished from
one of art, of letters, or of natural. $ci-
ence. The expression of belles lettres in
architecture demands a more _ purely
classic character than that of scientific
studies. Such a building as a library,
for instance, may without inconsistency -
rejoice in all the sumptuous glories. of
Roman architecture or the Renaissance;
the tradition of the world leads’ one
naturally enough in this direction. But
the architect conceives that such deli-
cate and highly organized motives find
little place in a mining building, which
demands a treatment, while no less beau-
tiful, much more primitive, less elab-
orately developed in the matter of detail,
less influenced by the extreme classic
tradition either as a canon of propor-
tion or as an architectonic scheme. The
profession of mining has to do with the
very body and bone of Earth; its process
is a ruthless assault upon the bowels of
of the world, a contest with the crudest
and most rudimentary forces. ‘There is
about it something essentially element-
ary, something primordial; and its ex-
pression in architecture must, to be true,
have something of the rude, the Cyclo-
pean. The emotion roused must be a
sense of power rather than of grace.
Even the scale of materials, the blocks
of stone of which the walls are built,
should be bolder and more strongly
masculine than that of any other struc-
ture likely to find a place in a great uni-
versity. To produce a design for a min-
ing building which shall in all sincerity
express its purpose and at the same time
shall harmonize with future buildings
quite as sincere in the expression of their
purposes—purposes in almost every case

THE @ARCHITECTURAL (RECORD,

THE TEMPORARY QUARTERS OF THE ARCHITECTURAL SCHOOL AT THE
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.
Berkeley, Cal. John Galen Howard, Architect.

THE NEW UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. 293

of greater amenity—this has been the
aim of the architect in approaching his
task in its artistic phase. lf in its treat-
ment he shall have secured a true out-
ward and visible expression of the in-
ward and spiritual organism of the
building, and if at the same time he
shall have succeeded in throwing over it
a degree of charm which shall make it
seem a kind, bluff brother amid a bevy
of lovely sisters, he will feel that his ef-
forts have not been wholly in vain.”

Such were the ideas dominating the
architect’s mind while the building was
being planned. Now let us hear his own
comments upon his completed work. In
his address, delivered when the building
was dedicated in August, 1907, he re-
stated his purpose in the following
words: ‘We have sought to secure
beauty, not by easy masquerade and put-
ting on of architectural stuff, but by or-
ganic composition working from within
out, and letting the heart of the thing
speak; we have in all frankness chosen
character rather than mere prettiness as
the end to be reached, sure that the high-
est beauty is to be derived from organi-
cally right foundations, not from any
amount of surface scorings or plaster-
ings. If then the building is of an un-
usual aspect, it is because the problem
was an unusual one—the expression of
a new thought or an old thought in a
new light, or the first synthesis of a lot
of old thoughts, must necessarily be new
and fresh. If the expression be true, no
matter how strange it may seem at first,
in the end it must be seen to be inevit-
able.

“Useful we have determinedly labored
to make this building; beautiful, we
have sought inspiration at the purest
founts of art to render it.

“Our dearest wish has been that it
should be able to brave these times and
the times to come with a front modest,
yet frank—simple, clean, sterling, per-
manent—beautiful in its own sincere,
assured and reticent way, but devoid of
anything remotely suggestive of over-
doing in the way of ornament or pom-
pous grouping of its parts—its poetic
message stripped of verbiage—classic to
the core, yet classic of that primitive type

which might almost be called archaic
were it not that it is quickened by the
breath of modern life.”

None can read the foregoing quota-
tions without getting a vivid sense of
the earnest intensity, of the absolute
personal dedication which the architect
has bestowed upon the work; and their
reading will explain many things about
the building which at first glimpse are
not easy to understand. The building is
much that the. architect has sought to
make it. It 1s above all organically and
strongly conceived, and most carefully
and elaborately wrought. Its simplicity
has become austere, its expression of
power primitive and robust without be-
ing too emphatic. It gives the effect of be-
ing both a memorial and a workshop, of
being both a monument and a laboratory.
It can be conceived as perfectly har-
monious with a group of buildings de-
signed in the classic spirit, while at the
same time embodying in itself such a
transfigured version of the classic ideal
that many ministers of that faith would
not recognize the allegiance. It has been
the result consequently of an extraor-
dinarily complicated set of conditions,
purposes and ideas, and it cannot be
wholly justified or appreciated until all
of the conditions are fulfilled—until, that
is, it is properly approached, properly
planted and properly surrounded with its
neighboring buildings. In the mean-
time its novel appearance will make
many architectural observers doubtful.
The writer, too, has his doubts about
one feature of the building—about the
propriety, viz., of placing such a roof
upon such a facade as that pierced by
the three great arches. The character
of the roof and the way it is connected
with the walls impair to his sense the
beauty of the building without contribut-
ing anything essential to its character.
However that may be, the building em-
phatically constitutes both beauty and
character, and the writer does not doubt
that fifty years from now it will consti-
tute one of the buildings erected by the
present generation of American archi-
tects which will have worn best, and
which, in the opinion of that day, will
best deserve indefinite perpetuation.

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Architecture in Philadelphia and a Coming
Chance

If Boston, as. itis said, be a “State of
Mind,” it has, nevertheless, bodily as-
pects which impress the casual visitor.
Indeed, the famous mentality may not
at first touch be noticeable. The sweep-
ing spaces of the Common and one or
two well-set buildings—the Public Li-
brary and the State House, for instance
—linger in the memory of the travel-
ler. New York has its towering, cloud-
swept masses giving it distinction—its
open spaces as one ascends Broadway ;
the stage setting wherein it plays its
part impresses the most hurried
stranger. Washington, too, in spite of
the disfigurements upon its fair face, is
nevertheless fair. Parks and avenues
and public buildings give an impression
of distinction which lingers in the mind.
Distinction is the word. That “civic per-
sonality” which makes Florence, sleeping
beside the Arno, a delightful memory.
Toledo, grey and stern upon her jagged
rocks; Rouen, with her spires tip-toeing
to peep over the surrounding hills; Dur-
ham, spreading below her cathedral-
crowned cliffs—these have distinction.
Man or Nature, or both, have given them
an outward form which abides in the
mind; the quality of personality is there.

And this quality of civic individuality
is worth cultivating. It should be a case
of noblesse oblige; one should wish his
city to have a character of its own if only
for the satisfaction of feeling that it was
not like the common run of towns.
Would that we could foster the spirit of
beauty to such an extent that it would
be the general desire that this character
should be an artistic one. Those of our
cities which have character owe it usu-
ally to the purely commercial side of
their affairs. The smoky, and not unim-
pressive stretches of Pittsburg, or the
skyscrapers of New York are of this
class. But if rightly handled purely
commercial things can have artistic
worth, as may be seen in some of the
English and German docks. Since our

people have but little artistic instinct
innate in them, let those among us who
have use every chance to foster it (par-
ticularly in the public schools )—that our
future politicians and ward bosses may
some day give us the city beautiful. And
if.not a matter of noblesse oblige, the
making of a city beautiful will in the
end pay for itself in the standing such
a city will have in the public estimation.
In these days of steam, our cities usu-
ally grow in the flat and least picturesque
of spots. The most charming of the old
towns are those which climb about hill-
tops—built when the walled city, easy
of defence, was a commercial necessity.
For these Nature has done much. Per-
haps the coming days of aerial naviga-
tion will again make hill-tops the fav-
orite sites.

What little Nature has done for Phil-
adelphia, man has quite nullified. In the
laying out of his town William Penn
showed the effects of his training and
his lack of imagination. True, he
planned five open squares—a central one
at the intersection of the two wide
streets of his town, and four outlying
ones—and perhaps he should not be
blamed for not foreseeing that streets,
wide when bordered by _ two-storied
dwellings, seem very narrow when
flanked by eight, ten or sixteen-story
buildings. Yet Oglethorpe in his plan
for the city of Savannah gave really
wide streets, alternating with narrow,
and with large open spaces at the junc-
tion of the former, making a delightfully
“roomy” city—a plan unfortunately not
continued by his near-sighted successors
of late years.

Set between two rivers on nearly level
ground, her open spaces few and unim-
pressive, all of her streets narrow and of
monotonous rectangularity; her good
buildings quite overpowered by masses of
commonplace or ugly structures, Phila-
delphia lacks compelling power. Even
the roar of Chicago’s double-decked rush

296

lingers in the memory more pleasingly ;
for if we must be modern and ugly, let us
be completely so. The one place in Phil-
adeiphia which remains in the mind’s eye
is the section of Broad Street, the city’s
most important thoroughfare, just south
of the City Hall. Here high buildings
frame in a view of the tower of this
building and in the afternoon light, with
clouds of steam swirling past flecking the
buildings with shadows, the effect is not
unimpressive. Again, these high build-
ings seen from a hill in Fairmount Park
give picturesque masses, looming like
some great castle beyond the wooded hills
and gleaming river. But otherwise there
is no effective place in the city. One does
not expect a Place de la Concorde nor a
Piazza di San Pietro in America (though
we will some day have their equal in
Washington, and perhaps elsewhere),
but there is not a place in Philadelphia
which compares in architectural interest
with Copley Square, Madison Square, the
East and South Batteries in Charleston
or Jackson Square (the old Place des
Armes) in New Orleans. And effective

places should be had. We should sacri-
fice (if sacrifice it be) some of our com-
mercial welfare for the sake of beauty;
place our public buildings and churches
amid worthy settings. It is urged by some
that such things are not democratic, that
they smack of kingship or church domi-

nance. But we are too democratic. The
freedom of the individual enables each
owner to flaunt his inalienable right to
build as ugly as he pleases; the law takes
care that his building shall not endanger
the public, but allows him to corrupt our
taste; a thing of very serious danger in
the life of the nation. By some the beauty
of Paris is held up to scorn as the re-
sult of the heavy hand of the tyrant; yet
many of the most charming of the open
spaces in the Italian towns were estab-
lished by democracies. In those days even
ward bosses seem to have had a sense
of beauty.

Philadelphia, in spite of present effort
and some isolated buildings of interest is
in its total effect depressing. Bad taste
is in evidence everywhere. The huge
and costly City Hall, completely filling up
up a small square,—the original central

THE ARCHIVE PURAL “RECORD,

square of the five planned by Penn—is
ungainly in mass and poor in detail: a
distorted reminiscence of the stately pa-
villions of the Louvre. The tower, ad-
mired by the uninitiated for its height,
simply has that much more space in
which to be bad. The unfortunate
change in material in the upper
stories—an abrupt transition from the
white of stone to the dark grey of
metal—is fittingly climaxed by a colos-
sal statue of Penn, which now for many
years has stood as an emblem of mis-
placed hero-worship and entire lack of
taste. When Philadelphia’s re-birth into
the world of art shall arrive, the first sign
will be the removal of that disfigurement.
The fame of William Penn needs no such
vulgar blazonment.

Facing the City Hall the Broad Street
Station, of an unrelieved and unpleasant
red, lifts pseudo-Gothic towers and pin-
nacles to the sky; the detail, particularly
in the interior, is of a kind to make the
judicious weep. Facing it is the costly
Masonic Temple (when will cost cease
to be the popular criterion of artistic
merit?) of a supposedly Norman type,
the rather stately lines marred by a tower
with most preposterous chopped corners
and over-hanging pinnacles. On another
side of the square is the tall Betz Build-
ing, of a bastard Richardsonian type; it
needs no other comment. The completed
section of the new Wanamaker Building
by Mr. Burnham on a fourth side, is the
only pleasing thing in the square. A lit-
tle farther north on Broad Street is the
Academy of the Fine Arts,a venerable in-
stitution housed in a building also costly,
whose facade in the Victorian Gothic, or
something else, is weird and strange. It
is only surpassed by the Library of the
University of Pennsylvania, the “fortified
greenhouse,” than which nothing more
grotesque could be imagined.

However, these buildings and others
of less importance in the debasement of
public taste are relics of the low-water
mark in American architecture—for
them Philadelphia is “more to be pitied
than blamed,” as the melodramas put it.
But another structure of much more re-
cent date testifies to the still degraded
state of the public art-standards, the

ARCHITECTURE IN PHILADELPHIA.

popularly-admired Smith
Fairmount Park.

This Park is a beautiful stretch of roll-
ing country lying on both sides of the

Memorial in

297

the Schuylkill, spanned by ugly bridges
and bordered by filthy coal and freight
yards drags its discouraged length to-
ward the Delaware, an eyesore, and, to

»
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-

PENNSYLVANIA R. R.—BROAD STREET STATION, CITY HALL SQUARE.

Philadelphia, Pa.

Schuylkill River somewhat above the
city; narrowing strips extending down
toward the centre as far as Spring Gar-
den Street, where are situated the old wa-
ter works and reservoir. Below this point

Frank Furness, Architect.

one who has looked upon the Seine, a
lasting reproach. It was in Fairmount
Park that thé Centennial was held (do
you know what B. C. stands for in Phil-
adelphia?) and its chief building, Me-

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Harry J. Schwartzman, Architect.

, FAIRMOUNT PARK.

MEMORIAL HALL

THE MASONIC TEMPLE—CITY HALL SQUARE.

Philadelphia, Pa.

AKCHITECTURE IN®* PHILADELPHIA.

morial Hall, remains; a dignified and re-
poseful piece of pseudo-classic design.
Yet even here the trail of the serpent is
seen, for in recent years the simple lines
of the low dome have been marred by a
golden Liberty Bell, surmounted by some
symbolic figure, let us hope, not Art, on
such a pedestal.

Near this building rises the Smith
Memorial—a monumental entrance hun-
dreds of yards from the real beginning
of the drive, on either side of which it

200

In a recent talk, Mr. C. Howard
Walker noted the fact that the things
we taste are carefully subjected to law;
that steps are taken to save our sense
of smell from disagreeable odors; that
Chicago has even a society for the sup-
pression of noise; but that our sight, the
sense that man would part with last, is
continually and everlastingly offended,
and we take no steps to relieve matters.
Too true. And we have no thought of
the debasement of taste in the coming

THE SMITH MEMORIAL ENTRANCE, FAIRMOUNT PARK.
J. H. Windrim, Architect.

Philadelphia, Pa.

abuts, and erected to the memory of
certain personages well known in the
Civil War, who seem to be placed there
to glorify Mr. Smith. This monument:
is absolutely lacking in taste. Curved
exedra-like wings are pierced by large
arches, curved in plan; two slender
Doric columns rise from this too-high
first stage, supporting large bronze
generals; and the lack of harmony be-
tween these slender vertica! members
and the heavy horizontal masses below
is exceptionally awkward.

generations. Our eyes have grown cal-
lous, and the artist who keeps our senses
alive to beauty is more often laughed
at than revered as a saviour. For the
future of American art, let us form so-
cieties for the destruction of buildings
which otherwise will retard our artistic
growth through numberless years.

The buildings of the Colonial period
are among the most interesting in Phila-
delphia. Before all, of course, comes
Independence Hall, recently carefully
restored. The view of this, seen across

300

Independence Square, is perhaps the
most distinctive note in the city. Un-
fortunately, the square is surrounded by
a miscellaneous collection of business
buildings, forming a setting not at all
worthy of the most important historical
monument in the United States. And
the front of the building, set rather close
to Chestnut street, has facing it a row
of buildings whose diversity is only sur-
passed by their ugliness. Another sign
of the artistic regeneration of the city

INDEPENDENCE
Philadelphia, Pa.

will be the removal of these buildings,
even though on costly ground, and the
establishment in their place of a park
which will give a proper approach to
this almost sacred structure. The in-
terior has been carefully restored, but
even here one sees a fearful example of
public - bad taste... [he Liberty’ Bell
stands in a large case,—the framing of
the glass sides being of carved (or tor-
tured) wood, forming, at the top, arches
where the thirteen voussoirs bearing the
names of the States alternate with vous-

THE ARCHITECT URAL RECORD:

soirs carefully cut to represent stone—
vulgar beyond measure—the kind of
thing that no large store could afford
to have in its place. Surely this relic is
worthy of a better setting.

One of the early buildings of interest
is the Old Sweed’s Church, in the south-
eastern section of the city. Originally
its graveyard swept down to the banks
of the Delaware; to-day it is closely
hemmed in by factories and train-sheds.
Much of its charm must have vanished

HALL, CHESTNUT STREET, BETWEEN 5TH AND 6TH STREETS.

Andrew Hamilton, Architect.

as they came.
small, built of imported bricks; a quaint

The building is very

belfry surmounts its small entrance
tower, and to the south is an interesting
arched porch. ‘The interior is extremely
simple, having a plaster vault and a
gallery.

Two other Colonial buildings of
which the city may be proud are Christ
Church: and St.: Peters Chuteh: “Christ
Chuateh, ‘built-in 1727- isa. tainly rich
example of the Colonial church of which
St. Philip’s, Charleston, is perhaps the

ARCHIRECTURE IN PHILADELPAIA. 301

ST. PETER’S CHURCH, PINE AND 3D STREETS,

Philadelphia, Pa.

302

most beautiful example. Of a fine tone
of red brick, it stands in a narrow yard,
the rear wall of the chancel rising from
the sidewalk; the western face, with
the tower on the central axis, has modern
business buildings rising within a few
feet of it. The present entrance is from
the yard through a door in the north
side. The interior is of the usual type,
with its awkward morsels of entablature
between column and arch, Palladian-
motive chancel window and high pulpit.
The pews, unfortunately, have been
modernized, and the modern stained
glass windows are not particularly har-
monious.

St. Peter’s Church, though of a less

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

and churches of this period which are
not uninteresting.

Of modern buildings, Philadelphia has
many of the first rank. Unfortunately,
they are so scattered that they are quite
swallowed up in the general run of
mediocre and bad stuff. Perhaps the
most important is the completed portion
of the Museum of Arts and Sciences of
the University of Pennsylvania, by
Messrs. Cope, Day and Eyre. The part
already built will probably be still more
charming when the whole composition is
completed. It is, generally speaking, in
the Lombard Romanesque style, the
“Seven Churches” at Bologna having
evidently suggested wall and column

MAIN BUILDING, GIRARD COLLEGE, GIRARD AVENUE.

ornate type, is, on the whole, moré pleas-
ing. It has retained its large graveyard,
dotted with fine trees; and its massive
tower and simple spire, as seen from the

northwest, are wholly charming. The
interior is as pleasing as its brown ex-
terior. The original pews have been
kept, adding much to the old-time effect,
and the placing of the reading-desk xt
the end opposite the chancel is an in-
teresting and unusual feature.

The main building of Girard College
is a fine example of the period; a really
splendid temple of marble, which has,
of course, no relation to its interior.
Philadelphia boasts of a few old banks

T. U. Walter, Architect.

treatment. But the style has been han-
dled in no straight-laced archaeological
manner, but with a sympathy and free-
dom that is entirely captivating. It is
most emphatically the kind of building
that must be lived with to be fully ap-
preciated.

The completed portion shows a small
court, open toward the street, partially
screened by a high terrace and well-
composed steps and gateway. The pro-
jecting wings are terminated by small
pavilions, while from the central mass -
projects a bold entrance pavilion, its
hooded white marble doorway reached
by steps ascending from either side.

393

ARCHITECTURE IN PHILADELPHIA.

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THE: ARCH) PBC TURAL RECORD,

GYMNASIUM, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Philadelphia, 3 Frank Miles Day & Brother, Architects.

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LIBRARY, UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Philadelphia, Pa. Cope & Stewardson, Architects.

ARCHITECTURE IN PHILADELPHIA.

THE BIG ‘‘QUAD’’—DORMITORIES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Cope & Stewardson, Architects.

MUSEUM OF ARTS AND SCIENCES, THE ENTRANCE FEATURE—UNIVERSITY OF
PENNSYLVANIA.

Cope & Stewardson,
Philadelphia, Pa. . Frank Miles Day & Brother, $ Associated Architects.
: Wilson Eyre,

306

The brickwork “has been handled in an
exceptionally clever manner. The ef-
fect of long Roman brick is obtained by
joining two ordinary bricks with a touch
of red mortar, and carrying about this a
very wide grayish-yellow mortar joint.
The columns and mouldings are of
moulded brick; bands are formed of
veitically or diagonally set bricks, and
spots of interest result from the use of
varicolored marbles set in patterns of
great charm and variety. The use of
white marble for capital, capstones and
cartouches is masterly in its reserve,
and the carving on the cartouches of
great beauty. The glare of the white
marble has been removed by the use of
a yellow stain (perhaps excusable in a
land where ready-made antiques are so
numerous), and even the walks and
pavements are made harmonious with a
dull red tint.

If any adverse criticism of this build-
ing could be made it would perhaps be
of the windows. MHaving to light a
museum, they are filled with large sheets
of glass, whose plain surfaces form an

unpleasing contrast with the rich tex-

ture of the walls. And this opens the
wide field of discussion as to the rela-
tion of style to function—a difficult and
purely modern problem. Across a street
from and at right angles to the Museum
rises the University Gymnasium, by Mr.
Day. It is of red brick, with creamy
terra-cotta string courses, etc.—in the
Tudor style; a symmetrical building,
well placed upon terraces, and equally
effective from the street fronts and from
Franklin Field, where it forms an im-
posing end to the banks of seats on the
other three sides of the athletic field. A
recently erected dial on the facade
toward the field, where the numerals
proper to a clock are replaced by the
twelve letters of the word Pennsylvania,
is in doubtful taste.

A few blocks further west are the
dormitories, by Messrs. Cope and Stew-
ardson. The site might be defined as
being composed of a square with a right-
angled triangle placed against one side.
The long masses of buildings which out-
line these two geometrical forms are
broken in a most interesting manner,

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

and a considerable difference in level
between the “Big Quad” and “The Tri-
angle” is used in a very effective man-
ner. The style chosen is a free adapta-
tion of the early English Renaissance,
the material being a pinkish brick, with
a good deal of white stone with much
clever carved work. The choice of this
style has been adversely criticized; but
setting aside the question of the beauty
or fitness of this rather than some other
style, it must be admitted that the build-
ings are very effective. It would be in-
teresting if the critics would come for-
ward and tell us what would be the
logical style for the dormitories of an
American university.

Horticultural Hall, by Mr. Day, is a
straightforward piece of design, inter-
esting in Ms tiseo1. colors 4. richly
painted frieze under the wide projecting
roof is as an oasis in the drab desert of
the city. On Seventeenth street rises an
interesting Baptist church, of a general
Romanesque type, by Mr. Seeler. Its
position, on the corner of two narrow
streets, with incongruous surroundings,
injures the effect very decidedly. In-
ternally it is a harmonious mass of
golden-brown and red-gold tones; the
scheme is that of a dome on pendentives,
with galleries under three of the sup-
porting arches.

The new United States Mint, on Spring
Garden street, by Messrs. Aiken and
Taylor, is a restrained piece of classic
Renaissance design (what does one call
a building that is neither Roman nor
Renaissance, and yet much of both?).
Near the City Hall is being completed
a very refined, classic white marble
structure by Messrs. McKim, Mead &
White, which one is surprised to learn
is neither a church nor a library, but a
bank for the Girard Trust Company:
a throwing away of a splendid chance to
further the cause of logical design.
Near by, on Chestnut street, by Messrs.
Price & McLanahan, is an interesting
store-front, in the detail of which the
influence of the University Museum is
felt, though the proportion of voids to
solids is, from the nature of the build-
ing, unpleasant. The Lyric Theatre,
with a classic facade and a too-classic

ARCHITECTURE IN PHILADELPHIA.

interior, the new Elks building, and the
St. James Hotel, the last two of the
French school, are worthy of note.

As Philadelphia is called the City of
Homes, an extended review of her resi-
dences might be expected. But, if it
may be so stated, the most interesting

397

the general aspect. And, particularly in
the newer portions of the city, blocks of
houses are being built by the score,
which for cheap pretentiousness and be-
numbing ugliness have rarely been
equalled. Here is a field of labor for the
philanthropist and the artist with an eye

THE PHILADELPHIA PARKWAY, AS PLANNED FOR THE FAIRMOUNT PARK ART
ASSOCIATION—BIRD’S-EYE VIEW.

of the city’s residences are outside of it,
and an examination of the many and
beautiful suburbs would lead us too far
afield. In the city proper, though there
are several residences of interest, they
have hardly any appreciable effect on

Horace Trumbauer,
C. C. Zantzinger,
Paul P. Cret,

Associated Architects.

to the future city beautiful: let them
look to the housing of the small rent-
payer. Living in such a dwelling must
be as fatal to the development of a sense
of beauty as the contemplation of the
aforementioned Smith Memorial.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

THE PHILADELPHIA PARKWAY, AS
PLANNED FOR THE FAIRMOUNT
PARK ART ASSOCIATION—PLAN.

Horace Trumbauer,
Cc. C. Zantzinger, Associated Architects.
Paul P. Cret,

Returning to the subject of the gen-
eral impression given by the city, it must
again be stated that Philadelphia lacks
effectiveness. Of the buildings men-
tioned, only St. Peter’s, the Mint and
the Gymnasium of the University of
Pennsylvania have any kind of a set-
ting. Placed upon narrow streets,
hemmed in by unrelated structures, they
cannot but fail of effect. Comparing our
cities with those of mediaeval Italy, for
example, we feel that the people of
those almost Dark Ages were far ahead
of our “enlightened” citizens; there
every public building has its proper
setting. We, instead of crying out upon
such things as are done to-day, merely
shrug and say: “Too bad, but anything
else is quite impracticable.” Where is
the Peter the Hermit who will arouse us
to a crusade against the unsightliness of
our cities? But Philadelphia is to have
a chance. Fairmount Park, before men-
tioned, lacks any adequate. approach
from the centre of the city. So build-
ings are now being demolished to make
way for a great boulevard which shall
open a spacious drive from the City
Hall to the nearest point of the park,
at Spring Garden street. It is proposed
to have an imposing entrance to the
park, the possible placing of an art gal-
lery upon the high reservoir site being
an interesting feature of the scheme.
The boulevard is to be planted with trees
and ornamented with fountains and
statues. But as yet the most important
thing has not been done. No restric-
tions have been placed upon the build-
ings which will line this great thorough-
fare. And there Philadelphia has the
chance to make or mar her artistic repu-
tation. Should some limit of height,
some restrictions as to color and style
be imposed, there is a chance of having
a vista which will rival the Champs
Elysées or the new Mall in Washington.
One can picture such a street, lined with
stately buildings, where the uniform
cornice line is pleasingly broken here
and there with well-placed tower or
dome, where the color is varied enough
to save it from monotony while har-
monious enough to preserve the effect
of general uniformity. In such a street,

ARCHITECTURE IN PHILADELPHIA. 309

in such a vista which would impress the
visitor, the city would have a money
asset of very real value, an advertise-
ment surpassing any other she could put
forward. And all at no extra cost!
Simply by restricting the property: by
sacrificing the vagaries of Tom, Dick
and Harry to the aesthetic welfare of
the rest of the citizens.

But perhaps the idealist has no place
in this modern world of ours. And we
can see, in our mind’s eye, this parkway

as it may perhaps materialize. Here
a cloud-kissing apartment house, there
a modest two-story Colonial build-
ing; on one side a pink granite bank, on
the other an art nouveau store flaunting
its gaily colored terra-cotta monstrosi-
ties in the face of the world. And at
the end, William Penn, on his five-
hundred-foot pedestal.

Heaven help Philadelphia in her judg-
ment in this matter!

Huger Elliott.

a 5 NED SNR RFI EE AAAI

STUDY FOR THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER EMBANKMENTS AND ADJACENT PARKS AND
AVENUES.

Philadelphia, Pa.

Architects: C. C. Zantzinger,
CG. L. Borie, Jr., {wast Bank.

Architect: Paul P. Cret, West Bank.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

|
|

|
LARKIN BUILDING—MAIN FLOOR PLAN.

FIG. 8.

Buffalo, N. Y.

The Larkin Building in Buffalo

This business building, the architec-
tural creation of Mr. Frank Lloyd
Wright of Chicago, is reproduced in
many excellent photographs, some of
which will be shown in this article and
others in the March number of the
Architectural Record. From among
them I select Fig. 1 as the most capable
of giving a general idea of the design.
The plan given in Fig. 8 shows the pur-
pose of each member of the building,
and the scale can be estimated as to the
heights, on the basis afforded by the
steps of the entrance doorways, checked
by the height of the doorway (seen in
Fig. 1) themselves, and by comparison
with the plan. It is. not safe to utilize
the courses of brick in this way, because
their height is uncertain; the bricks may
be of unusual dimension or laid with un-
usually wide joints. The nearest tower-
like mass in Fig. 1—that against which
the telegraph pole is seen relieved—is
about 90 feet high. The broader mass
behind it would be, then, about 110 feet
high, and this appears to be the highest
level “of the walls. .A- perspective
draughtsman can easily determine the
relative proportions, as width compared
to height, etc., but this front may be
taken, in the absence of any figure di-
mensions on the plan, roughly as go to
95 feet in width, not, of course, includ-
ing the north wing seen in Fig. 2.

That front shown in Fig 1 is called
in this paper the east front. The longer
side, showing in the same picture seven
windowed bays divided by square butt-
ress-piers, is called here the south flank.

It is possible to gain some knowl-
edge of the character of the building by
means of photos of the interior. Twenty
excellent interior views are found in the
collection above mentioned, and Fig. 3
shows how the building has a nave and
aisles—the nave shown in the illustra-
tions having windows at the ends, and a
skylight overhead; each aisle is divided
up into four lofts or stories of 16 to 17
feet each, in the clear. The broad end
windows, seen in Fig. 3 at the end of

the great hall, are the same windows that
show in Figs. 1 and 2 between the butt-
resses, and they correspond with the ar-
rangement of the south front, as in Fig.
I—note the four stories of broad win-
dows flanked by narrower ones, which
are seen within and without alike. One
relation between exterior and interior is
seen in this—the square brick piers
which divide what we here call the nave
from the galleries at each side—a long
double row of them are on the same
axes as the buttress-like piers crowned
by globes and human sculpture, in Figs.
I and 2.

In Fig. 3 there are partly seen the large
galleries, at the left and at the right hand
of the central skylighted nave. These
halls are of only moderate height—one
story of windows to each, as seen in Fig.
4, which gives the interior of the fourth
story, south side. Each one, as well as
the floor of the high nave, is filled rather
closely with desk-tables, at which are
seen seated clerks fully occupied in their
employ. In this view, we are looking
eastward, the wondow on the left and
in face of us are those seen from out-
doors in Fig.1, and the central nave is
north of us, on our right.

The western end of the building is
very closely like the east front; but the
northern side as shown in Fig. 2 is
masked by projecting masses of building
which include a great vestibule with en-
trance doorways to east and west. In
the northeast detail view, Fig. 5, the
doorway at the head of the steps where a
young man is standing is one of those
two entrances; it has the firm name on
the large fan-light, and is probably the
working entrance. The plan shows a
similar doorway at the west of this one,
and opposite to it. The houses of the
town and a church crowd the site rather
closely on the northern side.

The square towers at either end and
flanking the entrance in Fig. 5 are about
18 feet in horizontal dimension. That
one seen in Fig 5 has the overplus of
water very skilfully treated as a cascade

B12

sculptural setting. The two
seen in, Pig. 1, have

with a
outer towers,

small doorways, with steps of approach.
These are ventilator and stairway tow-
ers, and that with the fountain contains
also a staircase.

In tracing the analysis of this build-

Ge lk
Buffalo, N. Y.

ing through all this pile of photographs,
and in setting down, as above, its
scheme, we have also partly prepared
ourselves to judge of it as a work of
architecture. The lover of architecture
who looks, perhaps for the first time, at
a building so entirely removed as this

THE ARCHITECTURAL” RECORD,

one from the traditional styles and
schools feels a shock of surprise, and this
a surprise which is the reverse of pleas-
ant. Few persons who have seen the
great monuments of the past, or adequate
photographs of them; who have loved
them and have tried to surprise their

LARKIN OFFICE BUILDING—REAR.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

secret of artistic charm, will fail to pro-
nounce this monument, as seen in Fig.
I, an extremely ugly building. It is, in
fact, a monster of awkwardness, if we
look at its lines and masses alone. It is
only capable of interesting that student
who is quite aware that the architects of

THE LARKIN BUILDING.

the modern world during fifty years of
struggle have failed to make anything
of the old system—the system of follow-
ing the ancient styles with the avowed
purpose of developing some one of them
and going on to other things.

For such a task, the as yet unper-
formed duty of making comely a hard
working and economical building, the de-
signer might feel that Roman colonnad-
ing was out of the question, as extrava-

FIG. 2. LARKIN

Buffalo, N. Y.

gant in cost and waste of space, and the
frankly arcuated styles of the Middle
Ages unavailable for similar or equally
cogent reasons. He might find his
only available suggestion from old
times in the seventeenth century Ital-
ian, and the eighteenth century French
palaces—in styles which depended upon
fenestration. And then he might well
say that he was tired of seeing imi-
tations of those monuments; that the
popular and successful architects of the

313

time have filled our cities with such an
array of feeble school studies, based
upon plans good in themselves but
powerless to suggest an architectural
treatment of the whole, that he will have
none of that pseudo style.

Admitting, then, that the chase of the
Neo-Classic, of the Gothic, of the French
Romanesque, has come to nothing, that
we are as far as we were 1n 1850 from a
living style of architecture, and even

OFFICE BUILDING—FRONT.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

from anything which is worthy to be
called architecture at all, when a large
mass of the work of a period is taken
together, we shall find that the building
we are considering puts on a new aspect.

Do we find in this building none of
those familiar motives—those accepted
details which are architecture for us? It
is because the designer of this building
was determined to furnish nothing which
his practical requirements did not call
for. Is there no visible proof? It is be-

Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

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THE LARKIN BUILDING.

cause a flat roof is just as easy to make
tight and durable, with modern ap-
pliances of building, and because a
swarm of skylights and other utili-
tarian openings are better and more
easily accommodated in and upon
A fat Rei. “as there i are. no
chimneys, giving an opportunity for au
agreeable breaking of the masonry into
the sky and the sky into the masonry?
It is because there are no separate fires,
each fire requiring its own flue, and that

315

and because it seems a feeble thing to do
—to break up the arrangement of win-
dows merely for the sake of pretty pro-
portions. Are the grouped rooms and
closets of utility arranged, even at the
expense of the building, by thrusting
forward their crude masses to mask and
distort, what might have been the effect
of the main structure, all as seen in Fig.
2? That is because this is to be an eco-
nomical, working building, the offices of
a great business house, and because it

FIG. 4. LARKIN BUILDING—FOURTH STORY GALLERY.
Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

Buffalo, N. Y.

flue carried well above all obstructions.
There is probably one fire, and one only,
in the building; moreover, that one fire
is driven by a forced draught and re-
quires no tall chimney shaft to make it
burn. Is there no system of fenestra-
tion—the windows, and therewith the
doors, showing in pretty groups or in
long-drawn sequence carefully balancing
one another? That is because the build-
ing consists of five equal stories, used for
similar purposes; divided generally into
long, unbroken halls—lofts, in short;

was thought well to be resolute in the
chosen way and not to pretend to build
a monument of architecture when a
working structure was desired.

It is, indeed, quite certain that in New
York the newly erected business build-
ing at the corner of Wall Street and
Broadway, shown in Fig. 7, is more
nearly like what a business building
ought to be than the elaborated and deli-
cately detailed skyscrapers around. It
is certain that nothing is gained to archi-
tecture by trying to make a_ business

316 ' THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

building architectural in the good old fine art and active mercantile pursuits
sense. The fine arts have nothing to do are mutually exclusive. If you are to
with the hustle and bustle of daily bread- enjoy a work of art you must have lei-

HiGs. 9; LARKIN OFFICE BUILDING—DETAIL OF ENTRANCE.
Buffalo, N. Y. Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

winning operations. Those are hostile sure and a quiet mind; if you are to
influences, as Ruskin pointed out much produce a work of art you must have
more than half a century ago; or it might peace and a single mind. In neither case
be urged with still greater force that will it do to have hanging over you the

THE LARKIN BUILDING.

peremptory calls of the money-making
organization—not one paymaster, who
might perhaps forget his utilitarian re-
quirements in the light of design and the
joy of creation; but the commercial en-
terprise which can have no enthusiasm
and no care for finer things than com-
merce.

We are left, then, with our sympathies
enlisted in Mr. Wright’s behalf, to con-
sider what else might have been done,

FIG. 6.
Buffalo, N. Y.

had the architect felt that he could not
bear to turn out a building so ungainly,
so awkward in grouping, so clumsy in
its parts and in its main mass. Reject-
ing all that older styles have to offer us
in the way of construction and in the
way of detail, we may still ask, How did
the designers work when men knew how
to design? What, apart at least from
the unconscious following of the style
accepted during this period was their
main object? They sought for light and
shade. The interesting treatment of

317

light and shade, the production of grace-
ful and simple combinations of light and
shade was their chief aim. A thought
in architecture is generally a thought in
light and shade.

When the great buildings of the world
were designed everything else which was
capable of design received it; and all de-
sign in pure form, as in sculpture, in re-
lief modeling, in grouping and massing,
is design in light and shade. The simple

{

LARKIN OFFICE BUILDING—REAR.

Frank Lloyd Wright, Architect.

requirements of every-day life were met
by the maker of vessels and utensils with
as free and as successful a method of
designing as the requirements of state
and of religion; and he worked in form
principally, that is, in light and shade.
Earthen vessels and metal utensils were
gracefully designed. And all this not
because the maker cared greatly to pro-
duce a decorative object, for he also was
dimly conscious of the fact that it was
hardly worth while to waste design on
a working tool, but because it was in-

THE

Coe ae

FIG. 7. NO. 1 WALL STREET BUILDING.

New York City.
Barnett, Haynes & Barnett, Architects.

ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

evitable that a man who did fine things
on a Monday would still do comely
things on a Tuesday. How can you
make a clumsy and an awkward thing if
you have made graceful ones for forty-
eight hours on end? It is a blessed trait
of our nature that good habits as well as
bad habits may be formed and will stick.
And so the designs of a good time for
architectural art are sure to be good de-
signs, that is, to have such forms that
the light and shade upon them would be
lovely. The design before us could not
have been made by any able man at a
time when there prevailed a worthy style
of design in the world around him.

One may try, comparing these seven
or eight views of the exterior—one
may try the experiment of famili-
arity to see whether with longer
acquaintance the building is less ugly
than it seems at the first look. Ruskin
tells the story of his having been led
astray by the theory of Use and Wont
—by the notion that our liking for cer-
tain forms and colors is the result of fa-
miliarity, and nothing else, and he says
that he kept a skull on his mantelpiece
for months, but found it just as ugly
when the months had passed. And
so it is in all probability with this
exterior. If we are to consider it as a
piece of abstract form, as a thing which
is itself ugly or the reverse, the opinion
will remain fixed that nothing uglier
could exist among objects that were
found perfect in condition, cared for,
and showing the signs of human thought
and purpose. We should see in a moment
that where such qualities as those are
found to exist, the building cannot be
wholly contemptible. That it is wholly
repellant as a work of human artisan-
ship which might have been a work of
art and is not—so much is probably the
verdict of most persons who care for the
fine art of architecture.

Light and shade have been mentioned
above as the chief elements in our art,
and one of the ways in which light and
shade are used continually in architec-
tural design is in the way of moldings.
What is a molding? What are moldings?
It is, they are, a modulation of the sur-
face following continuous lines, straight
and curved. Moldings are an abandon-
ment of plane and uniform surface for a

THE LARKIN BUILDING.

broken and generally rounded surface,
as along an edge, and a group of mold-
ings consists of an alternation of pro-
jecting and retreating forms, mainly of
curved surface and of small dimension,
although these are broken, interspersed
here and there by narrow strips of flat
and uniform surface, which we call fil-
lets. Moldings do not weaken the wall
where the window jamb, the door jamb,
the horizontal cornice or sill course is
modified by their interposition. Sup-
pose, for instance, that one who lived
opposite this Larkin Building were to
have his way for a month, and were to
utilize his time in making the building
less clumsy in his eyes—would he not
begin by molding those square corners
which are thrust upon us so sharply in
all the exterior views, working those
corners into upright beads and coves, de-
veloping, perhaps, in an angle shaft with
capital and base? This, of course, is
not an essential feature. To insert it
would be to give, perhaps, too nearly
mediaeval a look to the design. Suppose
that the corners of one of those tower-
like masses were molded to such an ex-
tent that eight inches on each side of the
arris, everywhere, were to be reduced to
a series of soft surfaces, concave and
convex, parallel one to another, and car-
ried up from a little above the base to a
little below the coping? They may be
cast in brick, two or three separate pat-
terns of molded brick sufficing for the
whole composition. These moldings
must either stop or return; and there are
very interesting ways of arranging for
either. They may stop against the stone
coping or belt course itself; or they may
have a piece of cast brick or of terra-
cotta or of cut stone, in the mass of which
the stop of the groups of moldings may
be against a splay or a concave or a con-
vex curved surface. ©

Moldings are important and valuable,
and the designer who rejects them alto-
gether handicaps himself—and yet there
are even better things than moldings.
The horizontal bands in a building like
this would be interesting if they were
molded; and yet they would be more in-
teresting still if they were carried out
in some greater projection in the face of

319

the building and supported on corbels
or on a little arcade. But it is evident
that the first principle laid down by the
designer for his own guidance was this
—to avoid everything that would look
like a merely architectural adornment,
to add nothing to the building for the
sake of architectural effect. He would
repel the idea of a projecting cornice as
readily as he would the full classical en-
tablature for the top of one of these
square towers, which would be no better
working elements of the building if they
were so adorned. Either you must add
to a building something which is un-
necessary, and which nothing but exist-
ing tradition even suggests to you, or
you must have a bare, sharp-edged pile
of blocks—a group of parallelopipedons
like this. The designer seems to have
said that even the rounding off of the
coping shall be eschewed. He has de-
termined that the square corner, the
right angle, the straight edge, the sharp
arris, the firm vertical and horizontal
lines, unbroken, unmodified, uncompro-
mizing in their geometrical precision—
that these and these only shall be the
features of his building. But as that
characteristic of the building prevents it
from having any delicate light and shade,
therefore it stands condemned in the eyes
of any person who looks at the building
asking for beauty of effect.

There is, however, mass. There is the
possibility of proportion, the proportion
of the smaller to the greater, and the pos-
sibility of fitting one to another firmly
and with grace. There is the propor-
tion obtainable by the horizontal distri-
bution, the alternating of curtain walls
with towers, of projecting and receding

masses; and there is the possibility
of vertically succeeding masses, the
parts: “which serve for) ‘a:~ kind = of

basement at either end, and those tow-
ers and buttresses which rise above
them. There is even a possibility of
contrast between walls filled with win-
dows and the massive blank space of the
wall which rests upon the piers between
the windows.

If, now, we seek to take up a sympa-
thetic position, to consider the building
as perhaps the architect himself consid-

320

ered it, there are to notice the care given
to the plan and disposition of the halls
and rooms, the care which has evidently
resulted in a successful utilitarian build-
ing. Construction which is the simplest
and most obvious, and which cannot go
astray because everything is reduced to
the post and lintel; workmanship which
is faultless, simple and straightforward
brickwork; piers and walls fairly and
smoothly built; slabs and beams of stone
which have been planed and dressed in
the mill and left with sharp arrises; a
view down the central hall as seen in
Fig. 3, which is impressive because of
che straightforwardness and simplicity of
everything, and because of the clear day-
light which fills all parts of the hall; the
evidences which the pictures multiply
of a minute prevision in the way of office
furniture, safes and cupboards for filing
papers, tables and chairs of metal and
solid wood, all of the simplest conceiv-
able forms; the electric bulbs set in racks
at a convenient height above tables and
counters, which racks, though of incon-
ceivable ugliness, have yet the character

of simple utility—all these things unite
to make a building which no one can fail

to accept. The iron railing which en-
closes the site comes nearer. to being
really a design than the larger details,
generally; for in this a true economy
and a sagacious utility take the place of
a sense of form. Our standard is lower,
when we consider some hundreds of
running feet of fencing.

And so in the exterior it is allow-
ale! to tae: -studént to. feel that’ a
square brick shaft is as fit to contain a
winding staircase or an elevator as a
round or octagonal cut stone shaft cost-
ing: five . times’ the “money; . that
windows are not absolutely neces-
Gai” when there can be “a siy-
light: and that where there are no
windows, and no breaking up for win-
dows without necessity, the result is in-
evitable—the result that there will be
no pierced parapet nor any modifying of
the uppermost story to replace in a way
the cornice which, of course, such a
building does not require. Here is a
well-thought-out design, every detail of
construction and all the appliances have

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

been studied with care. Here is an ex-
cellent arrangement of large windows,
raised high toward the ceiling, broad and
low and shaped as they ought to be for
utilitarian results. It is clear that there is
nothing to burn about the building; it
is as fireproof as such a building can be
made. And while everything has been
carried out with a view to practical util-
ity, there has been also some attempt to
adorn, to beautify. But we have already
seen reason to think that this attempt has
failed. See for the attempt and for the
failure, in Fig. 8, that curious base ar-
ranged beneath the brick piers on the
right; it is the Attic base reduced to its
simplest form, the familiar old Attic
base, with its rounded moldings turned
back into the square-edged bands which
those moldings were in their origin. And
those square moldings are put in, the
larger below and the smaller above, with
the evident purpose of serving as orna-
ment. Accepting this, let the eye now
take in the curious square block decora-
tion of the same pier in its upper part,
higher than the door and between the
great doorway of the entrance where the
firm name is painted on the glass, and the
small staircase doorway on the right. Is
this a serious attempt to create a new
system of design? May we assume that
the inevitable squareness of the brick-
built pier, all molded and specially cast
brick being rejected, satisfies the de-
signer so well that he gladly makes
everything else, his sculptured ornaments
and his bronze fittings, as square as the
masses of brickwork? Look, then, at the
system of metal frames in which the elec-
tric globes are suspended. From this
picture go back to Fig: 3 and study
those straight-edged and sharp-cornered
groups of ornament at the tops of the
great piers, and directly below the sky-
light see those square ornaments which
are clearly nothing but ornaments. Fig.
4 shows two groups of those extraordi-
nary connections—those terminals of the
great supporting piers at the end of the
high nave opposite the one shown in
Fig. 3. It is unnecessary to describe the
design of these strange masses of square-
edged patterning; no human designer
could make anything graceful or even

THE LARKIN BUILDING.

anything effective out of such elements
as those. Taking all this accumulation
of strange, sharp-edged solids, offering
no modulation of surface—nothing but
sharp contrast and checkered black and
white—and the wonder will grow upon
you more and more, how such a costly,
careful, thoughtful, well-planned build-
ing should be made up of such incon-
gruous parts, leading to such a hopeless
result.

One cannot help liking broad surfaces
of fair brickwork, and yet those very
masses of brickwork may be so much
more interesting; they may be invested
with color. There is the third chance for
the designer! After light and shade
have escaped him, or have been rejected,
deliberately, and when the artistic use
of mass and proportion are out of the
question, he has still at his disposal
the interest and charm of color, and
this exterior calls for it loudly. The
careful brickwork, even as it is, has a
certain momentary pleasure to offer
those of us who feel dissatisfied with
the flimsy character and the inappropri-
ate ornament of the buildings around.
Such a pleasure lasts but an instant,

321

however. You turn from the florid fa-
cade to the plain brick gable wall or rear
with a sense of relief, but it is merely
an instantaneous pleasure which you feel
in escaping from something painful. If
we are to look at the building a second
time, and that with renewed pleasure,
we must have something else; and, where
delicate play of light and shade is denied
us, as here, variety of color pattern
would be an admirable expedient. It is
not necessary to expatiate on this view
of the case, for any one who has ever
made patterns in mosaic or has enjoyed
the patterns that others have made for
him will see what a pleasure this building
might have been to the designer and to
the student, had its grimness of aspect
been modified by color patterns. Even
the simple stripes found in the wall of
that New York apartment house which
faces on Fourth Avenue and East Sixty-
eighth Street, three horizontal courses
of dark brown brick, one of scarlet brick,
and so on, in alternation, even that is
beautiful. More elaborate, more effect-
ive combinations might be made ~where
colored bonds pass through—cut across
—groups of moldings.
Russell Sturgis.

The

PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION BUILDING—VIEW .OF FRONT.
Milwaukee, Wis. H. J. Esser, Architect.

PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION BUILDING—REAR VIEW, SHOWING THE GREAT

POWER STACKS.
Milwaukee, Wis. H. J. Esser, Architect.

The Building of the Public Service
Corporation of Milwaukee

The Public Service Building of the
Milwaukee Electric Railway and Light
Company has.a peculiar interest because
of the many different purposes to which
it is put. Below its roof is conducted
practically every kind of business di-
rectly or remotely involved by the work
of a large public service corporation.

The president and general manager of
the Milwaukee Electric Railway and
Light Co., Mr. John I. Beggs, decided
that his company could conduct the
greater part of its business with as
much economy from one centrally sit-
uated building; and he believed, also,
that the habitation of such a_ building
would help to make the company more
important in the public eye. He decided,
consequently, on the erection of a struc-
ture containing space for every depart-
ment of the company’s business, and
that this structure should be designed

to make an adequate impression on
the public., To this’ end he called
to his assistance an architect, Mr.

H. J. Esser; and the building, as it
stands, is the result of the co-operation
of these two gentlemen. Under its roof
are carried on a greater variety of occu-
pations than in any other building in the
country. It contains a waiting room, a
train shed, a power house and rooms for
every different department of the com-
pany’s auditing and essential business.
Nor is this all. It is planned, also, to
contain a large auditorium, reading and
club rooms for the entertainment of the
company’s employees and a gymnasium.
Thus it has its social, in addition to its
business, purposes. It is in its way a
club house and a theatre, as well as an
office building and a power house; and
it performs all these services in a very
efficient manner.

The structure covers the area of one
whole city block, and a good-sized one
at that, being bounded by Sycamore,
Everett, Second and Third streets. Its
location is central, being only one block
from Grand avenue, the business centre

of the city, immediately adjoining the
Union Depot, and very near the most
important steamer and passenger dock.
Although only four stories high, it is of
steel construction: but if at some future
time it will pay to enlarge the building,
the frame is strong enough to carry a
number of additional stories.

In the basement is installed not only
all the machinery needed for the build-
ing itself, but also all the boilers that
supply the Milwaukee Central Heating
Company with its steam, as well as the
extensive storeroom of the sales depart-
ment. On the first floor are located the
main entrance, the sales and _ exhibit
rooms of the lighting department, the
interurban waiting room and the exten-
sive car sheds of the company’s inter-
urban system. On the second floor are
the offices of the accounting and trans-
portation departments, the latter having
access to the train shed by a convenient
special stairway. The club rooms and
the auditorium are also on this floor.
Their object is to give the employees
opportunities for recreation and study
under wholesome physical and moral
conditions. Space has been provided for
a reading room, with a library, billiard
and pool rooms, bowling alleys, a dining
room, lavatories and kitchen. A gym-
nasium is also contemplated on the top
floor. The auditorium, while it is rented
for conventions and similar purposes, is
primarily intended as a hall in which the
men can meet and hear talks on various
phases of their work.

On the third floor are the offices of
the construction, rolling stock, power
plant, claim and lighting departments,
as well as the hospital. The latter con-
tains operating and other similar rooms,
in which injured people can be expediti-
ously and properly cared for. On the
fourth floor are the offices of the presi-
dent and his chief clerk, the directors’
room and the printing office. The illus-
trations give some idea as to the com-
pleteness of the finish in every respect.

THE PRESIDENT’S OFFICE.

ROOM—MIL.WAUKEE PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION BUILDING.

DIRECTORS’

Milwaukee,

H. J. Esser, Architect.

Wis.

PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION BUILDING.

BILLIARD ROOM FOR THE COMPANY’S EMPLOYERS.

THE AUDITORIUM—MILWAUKEE PUBLIC SERVICE CORPORATION’ BUILDING.
Milwaukee, Wis. H. J. Esser, Architect.

J. H. Freedlander, Architect.

Beis ais

RESIDENCE OF SIGNOR CELESTINO PIVA.

Washington Square West, New York City.

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NOTES & COMMENTS

TWENTY:THIRD In the annual ex-
hibition of the Archi-

ANNUAL
EXHIBITION tectural League of New
York which closed on
RCHI- A
or oe Feb. 22d at the Fine
es Arts Building in West

57th Street, New York,

OF NEW YORK it was apparent to the
critical observer of architectural exhibitions
that the architects are realizing the neces—
sity of their cooperation if they would make
architecture more popular. In this exhibition
there was a noticeable lack of the elaborate
feats of draughtsmanship, large plans, elab-
orate scale details and working drawings
over which the ambitious draughtsman was
wont to pore in previous years, for new
“tricks of indication’ in drawing and color.
To him the showing must have _ been,
to a certain degree, a disappointment, for he
found instead that a large portion of the
wall space had been given up to the allied
arts of design. In the architectural section
of the galleries he found a predominance of
small plans, mere diagrams in black and
white and numerous charming “photographic
bits” of the work exhibited. The range of the
subjects illustrated was perhaps as wide as
in former years but there was noticable a
scarcity of large undertakings. The exhibits
of many of the older firms were missing
and many new names were in evidence to
fill the gaps. Suburban and country. work
predominated more than ever and competi-
tive designs were comparatively few; the
architectural schools and Beaux Arts So-
ciety exibited fewer drawings than ever. We
will not catalogue here the subjects ex-
hibited; most of them are already fairly
familiar to the readers of the architectural
journals which illustrated in their pages the
majority of them. It is more to the general
character of the exhibition that we would
eall attention.

The hanging committee is to be congratu-
lated on the general result of its efforts, al-
though we should like to see them carry
further the idea of interesting the non-pro-
fessional. It is perfectly natural for such a
committee to desire to supplement the ex-
hibits by additional information in the form
of a detailed catalogue (which, by the way,

is this year particularly attractive in its ar-
rangement and manufacture) but would it
not be a valuable addition to give the public
right on the exhibits themselves, what might
be called a detailed annotation of the build-
ing or subject portrayed and thereby im-
mediately invite its interest in such a way
that it will carry away from the exhibition
a definite notion of something which has at-—
tracted its notice there? To cite an instance,
would it not have been highly instructive
and interesting to the hundreds of people
who no doubt gazed on Mr. Herter’s deco-
rative painting, ‘The Attributes of the
Arts,’ which occupied the position of honor
in the Vanderbilt gallery, to have been able
to read the purpose of that work, a refer-—
ence to the figures of the composition and
the conditions under and for which it was
painted? We think that such a ready refer-—
ence to and description of subjects could be
extended to advantage to a majority at
least if not to all the exhibits. We can
think of no device which would act more
powerfully to stimulate popular interest in
the work of the architect and the artist,
nor any method by which the layman would
be more swiftly led to alter his point of view
of architecture and art from ignorant adula-
tion to intelligent interest and reason limited
only by the capacity of his training and by
his intelligence. At any rate the suggestion
would seem worth trying; experience would
readily determine its value or its worthless-
ness.

An added reason for imparting to the ob—
server (who is too often merely a superficial
spectator) information that really informs,
is the remarks that one hears at such ex-—
hibitions and the blank expressions on the
faces that one sees. A great many of these
people do not understand sufficiently what
they are looking at and consequently see lit—
tle to hold their attention. If the architects
and artists would enlighten these people they
must afford them a stronger hold on the
subject by some sort of popular instruction,
and how could they seemingly better accom—
plish such instruction than by ‘making their
exhibitions illuminating in a way that every
inte'ligent person can successfully try to
understand.

328

The “Architectural
Record” has frequently
illustrated different
types of English base-
ment houses which are
replacing the old- brown
stone fronts on the res-
idential streets of New
York; but it sometimes happens that the
owner of one of these old houses seeks to
make it look somewhat more cheerful with-
out entirely doing away with it. And the
achievement of such a result is perhaps as
difficult a task for the architect as is the
design of an entirely new fagade. We are
glad, consequently, of an opportunity to il-
lustrate a case in which an old brown stone
front has been refreshed with conspicuous
success. The accompanying photograph
shows not only the reformed facade, which is
situated on Washington Square West, but
also on its left, a surviving brownstone front
identical with the one which has been dis-
placed. The reader can, consequently, meas-—
ure very accurately the improvement in ap-
pearance, which the architect, Mr. J. H.
Freedlander, has brought about, and he can
immediately detect the means, which have
been used for this purpose. The old stoop
at right angles with the entrance has been
replaced by brick stairs parallel to the line
of the building, enclosed by a simple iron
railing and leading to a spacious porch. A
new brick door-frame has been constructed
on this porch, somewhat beyond the line of
the house thus emphasizing the entrance and
affording a larger enclosed vestibule. A lit-
tle balcony has been placed outside the win-
dows on the first floor; and these windows
have been cut down to the floor level, so as
to give access to the balcony and at the
same time to stamp with greater importance
the drawing room within. The old, large
window panes on every story have been re-
placed by small ones. The old, heavy mould-
ings around the openings have been torn off,
and a simple square recess substituted.
Every window, except those of the top
floor, has its little window box, and the open-
ings on this floor have been reduced in size,
so as to mark their relative unimportance.
Finally the old ugly galvanized iron cornice
has been removed and the front terminates
in a sort of a tiled hat brim. It should be
added that the surface of the brownstone
has received a good rubbing, which has im-
proved its appearance, while at the same
time the joints in the masonry have been
penciled. These changes in detail have
given the owner of the house a smart and
attractive modern dwelling in place of a

HOW TO
REFRESH A
BROWNSTONE
FRONT

WE ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

dull and cheerless brownstone front; and the
architect’s success should encourage others
to spare the owner the cost of a. recon-
structed front whenever such expense is not
necessary.

The restoration of the
Governor’s Room in
A the New York Gity
COLONIAL Hall, through the lib-
erality and publie
RESTORATION spirit of Mrs. Russell
Sage, is both in itself
and in its suggestion,
a gratifying thing. The only possible objec-
tion—since the constitution of the committee
of the Art Commission which is to supervise
the work seems to insure artistic and faith-
ful execution—is that it is a pity that an
individual should have had to do what the
rich city of New York might so fittingly
have done. It is not a wholly satisfactory
answer that there were no funds available
for exactly this work; but, since there were
no funds, it is good to find an individual
willing to do it, and to do it fully and gen-
erously. The particular form which this ex-
pression of public spirit has taken is rather
novel; but it is so widely approved that we
may hope it may have many imitators, if
their expenditures be similarly safeguarded.
The room, in its artistic excellence and in
its historical significance, is of more than
local municipal interest. As perhaps the
most important apartment in the beautiful
old city hall, it has suffered various tribula-
tions at the hands of would-be “improvers,”’
until little vestige of its original simplicity—
which writers of the time could justly call
most elegant—remained. But now the dis—
covery of the plans of its own architect, and
the fact that the committee is composed of
Robert W. DeForrest, Frank D. Millet,
Arnold W. Brunner, Walter Cook, and John
B. Pine, make certain a wise use of Mrs.
Sage’s gift.

In its January notes,
The Architectural Rec-—
ord made a plea for
nationalizing the Pali-
sades park opportunity
on the Hudson River
atop the Palisades,
opposite the northern
end of the City of New York. The New York
Herald of February 12th gives us the fol-
lowing news item:

A BEGINNING
OF THE
HUDSON’S
WEST BANK
PARK
OPPORTUNITY

Prompt action was taken in the Senate today
upon the bill recently reported favorably from com-
mittee, which authorized the acceptance of the site
of old Fort Lee, in New Jersey. The old fort was

NOTES AND

used by the Continental army in the Revolutionary
War, and marks the beginning of the Palisades.
The donor of the two and one-quarter acres of
land which comprise the site is modest, and has not
permitted his name to be made known, the negotia-
tions being conducted by a firm of New York at-
torneys. Secretary of War Taft recommended that
the site be accepted by the government. It is ex-
pected that the tract will be added to other land in
the vicinity of the Palisades, and be used as a park.

This is a good beginning, for with its his-
toric memories Fort Lee is a worthy en-
trance gate to the entire region north over
which in Revolutionary days ran a mili-
tary road which must have been assidiously
patrolled by videttes and sentries in de-
fence of the natural fortification formed by
the cliff which protected the American army
encamped in the country inland. The scene
centers about Tappan where Andre was
hanged and the tavern where he was im-—
prisoned. The old Dutch house bearing the
date 1700 in black bricks, where Washington
had his headquarters, still stands in good
condition. This old road loses itself at the
little hamlet of “Palisades,” on the hill above
the western terminus of ‘Dobbs Ferry,”
known as Sneden’s Landing, where there is
located a stone block-house the scene of at
least one encounter with the British and
which recently was used as a studio by the
sculptor, Tonetti.

Lower, by the river, are the remains of
old earthworks, for this passageway of the
Hudson is the first above Fort Lee where an
army might well cross, with the possible ex-
ception of a similar pass between Yonkers
and Alpine.

The little seed sown by us in these col-
umns and taking visible form in this pro-
posed reservation may some day grow so
that future generations may praise our fore-
thought in the possession of a beautiful
breathing spot when the great city ‘shall
stretch along the base of the hill to the
west of the Palisades and across the river
to the east. May the good work go on.

The expert commis-
sion which is supervis-—

PROGRESS ing the execution of
IN “the Group Plan” for
h blic buildings of

CLEVELAND bach ci sae

the city of Cleveland,

has issued a_ second

edition of its original
elaborate report “with supplement indicating
the progress of the improvements.” The
commission is composed of Daniel H. Burn-
ham, John M. Carrére and Arnold W. Brun-
ner. The second edition comes not quite four
years after the first. It reports all of the
land required for the sites of the court-
house and city hall purchased, as recom-

COMMENTS. 329

mended by the board, the cost of it amount-
ing in round numbers to $1,648,000; very
much of the land for the Mall already pur-
chased—and now, we believe, cleared; the
post office about completed; the site for the
public library definitely accepted; the ‘work-
ing drawings for the court house approved
(May, 1906) and the preliminary plans for
the city hall approved (March, 1906). Tllus-
trations and descriptions of these structures
and of the post office are included in the
supplement. The story is an interesting and
encouraging record of accomplishment.

Although as this is

written the awards

PRIZES FOR have not been. an-
ARTISTIC nounced, there can be
cordial commendation

Oe of the plan of the
Metropolitan Improve-

ment League of Boston
to award prizes for that local work of the
year which is best in architecture, sculpture,
mural decoration in public buildings, street
fixtures, festival decorations, and artistic ad-
vertising. The prizes are to be gold, silver
and bronze medals, and honorable mentions.
Their award is to be the occasion of a ban-
quet, which may become, it is suggested, an
annual March civic festival. The spirit of
the thing is almost mediaeval—redolent of
the Renaissance, though recently revived
in Paris, Brussels, Buenos Ayres and other
places. It wakes to conscious realization
that popular feeling that wherever a beauti-
ful thing is created for the public to be-
hold—even though the ownership be private
—there something is added to the common
wealth. It is well to make public recogni-
tion of this. In some European capitals, the
community’s gratitude for a beautiful house
is expressed in a remission of taxes. This
award of medals is a degree finer, because
above pecuniary consideration. Socially,
too, the plan is good, since its tendency must
be slightly to modify the envious bitterness
toward wealth.

The discussions which

THE have been called forth

by the revision of the

upon the problem of the

skyscraper. With the erection of a num-

ber of buildings over twenty-five stories high
that problem has assumed a more acute
phase in New York than in any city in the
country; and many proposals have been

330

made looking in the direction of a limita-
tion in the height of buildings. Among
these proposals that of the Revision Com-
mission was one of the most novel and in-
genious. It did not apparently seek abso-
lutely to limit the height of buildings; but
it did seek to make the owner pay for the
privilege of building high by means of a
proportionate ‘sacrifice of his ground area.
A very tall building, that is, would necessar-
ily be separated from its neighbors by larger
courts than a lower one, and such a method
of limitation undoubtedly seems at first
glance to be reasonable.

It has not, however, been received with
very much favor. All the property—owners,
real estate speculators and building contrac-
tors interested in the construction of sky-
scrapers have protested against it, and to
all appearances their opposition will prevail.
Public opinion is negligent and indifferent in
such matters; and consequently the much
more aggressive body of opinion, which is
the result of private interest usually has its
own way—particularly when the supposed
representatives of the public interest are a
group of men, no more intelligent, well-in-
formed or disinterested than the New York
Board of Aldermen. An American legisla-—
tive council almost always acts in accord-—
ance with the wishes and opinions of an ag-
gressive private and special interest, unless
an equally aggressive body of public opin-
ion compels them to consider the public in-
terest as well; and hitherto no such body of
public opinion has been formed in relation
to the limitation of sky-scrapers. It is very
probable, consequently, that the current at-
tempts to establish such a limitation will
fail—as all previous attempts have failed.
The height of sky-scrapers will continue to
be regulated only by business conditions, un-
til some striking disaster will suddenly and
sensationally expose the public dangers in-
curred by the lack of any regulation.

When the time comes, however, as it as-
suredly will, for some effective regu'ation, it
is possible that such regulation will assume a
form advocated by Mr. Ernest Flagg. Mr.
Flagg by no means approves of the limitation
proposed by the commission, who prepared
the revised version of the New York Building
Code. The effect of the proposed ordinance
would undoubtedly be the same as that of
a rigid limitation of the height of buildings.
Under such a provision there would be a
level in relation to every possible site, higher
than which it would not pay to build. This
level would vary in different cases; but the
general effect would be to lower by several
stories the height to which buildings are

THE ARCHITECTURAL KRECORD,

usually erected on very expensive land. The
carrying out of such a proposal would un-
doubtedly mean a discrimination in favor of
property-owners, whose land had already
been improved with tall buildings; and it
would for a time at least decrease the value
of unimproved property in the same neigh-
borhoods. Mr. Flagg, consequently, would
not depart entirely from the policy hitherto
adopted by the city. He would permit the
erection of buildings to any desired height;
but he would safeguard this permission with
conditions, which would prevent it from be-—
coming harmful to abutting property or dan-
gerous to the public interest.

The sort of regulation which Mr. Flagg
proposes would permit the property-owner
to adopt one of two courses. In case he
wishes to erect a sky-scraper, be must either
buy so much land that he can almost com-
pletely surround his tower with a lower
building. Or else in case his tower actually
adjoins other people’s property he must pay
this adjoining property owner for the right
to build his towering structure—a payment
which would be equivalent to purchasing his
neighbor’s privilege of erecting a building
Over a certain height. The effect of such
regulation would be to permit the erection
of a few lofty towers in every block sur-
rounded by buildings of a much lower, al-
though still considerable height; and an ef-
fect of this kind would combine more eco-
nomic advantages with fewer disadvantages
and public dangers than would any other
form of regulation, always assuming, of
course, that the towers are constructed and
finished with absolutely fireproof materials.

No doubt the regulation, proposed by Mr.
Flagg would deprive property owners of op-
portunities which they now enjoy, but such
a deprivation would only be a legal recog-
nition of disabilities imposed by economic
conditions. At the present time a property
owner can ostensibly erect a building of any
height upon a lot of any size; but his legal
liberty in this respect is confined by certain
obvious economic conditions. The value of
any sky-scraper he erects is very much di-
minished by a failure absolutely to secure
good light and air for the offices in the build-
ing. The owners of the first twenty-story
buildings erected in New York began to real-
ize this truth, when they were forced to ac-
quire abutting property at a high value in
order to prevent the erection thereon of
buildings as tall as theirs; and at the pres-
ent time no prudent capitalist will erect a
building even twenty stories high without
protecting himself against subsequent inter-
ference. Much more is this the case when

NOTES AND

the proposed building is twenty-five, thirty
or thirty-five stories high. Whenever ‘such
towers have been planned, they have always
been surrounded either by streets or by pri-
vate property under the same ownership. It
is this practice which Mr. Flagg proposes
to recognize legally, and such ae course
would merely bestow a definite legal form
upon a practical condition from which no
property Owner can escape. He might es-
cape from it by buying a whole block and
then covering as much of the area as he
could with a thirty-five story building; but
the purchase of a whole block in the busi-
ness districts of Manhattan has now become
almost an impossible task even for insurance
companies. Individuals or corporations who
own whole blocks should, however, be legally
prevented from covering the area with a
building over a certain height; and in other
cases the proposed regulation would, as we
have explained, merely define a prevailing
business practice.

There is also an architectural aspect of the
matter which should not be ignored. From
an exclusively architectural point of view,
the sky-scraper will doubtless always remain
an excrescence, not because it is twenty-five
stories high, but because its height is wholly
out of proportion to width of the street on
which it is situated. One can imagine the
creation of a magnificent architectural ef-
fect in case twenty-five story buildings, well
designed for their purpose, were situated at
certain points around the Place de la Con-
corde in Paris; except in rare instances our
sky-scrapers will never obtain the propriety
and scale which they might have when sit-
uated on very wide streets or spacious
Squares, and as a matter of fact, streets
broad enough to give them scale, would be
too broad for practical convenience. In this
sense the sky-scraper must always remain
architecturally heretical; but if our masters
will have them, they would, under Mr.
Flagg’s proposed regulation, appear most
assuredly to their very best advantage. A
block of buildings from twelve to fifteen
stories high with here and there a thirty-
story tower breaking through the sky line
would certainly present a picturesque ap-
pearance, and afford many attractive oppor-
tunities to the architect. <A city in which
such spectacles were numerous would not be
a beautiful city; but it might be extraordi-
narily impressive; and there can be little
doubt that in the course of the next twenty
years the Borough of Manhattan in the City
of New York will in its central portions as-—
sume such an appearance. And this con-
summation can be anticipated with equanim-

COMMENTS. 331

ity even by lovers of good architecture pro-
vided all the new buildings, low or high,
erected in these districts are thoroughly fire-
proofed; and providing the street layout is
made adequate to the stress of traffic cre-
ated by such a dense business population.

Under the _ alluring
title, “The Gentle Art
of Disfiguring Old

MISTAKEN Churches,” J. Cleveland
“IMPROVEMENT” Cady contributed to a
recent, = Outlook =. san
article, made emphatic
by concrete stories,
that showed the architectural injury too
often wrought in “‘smarting up” the churches
of old villages. And he adds, this “‘ill-
treatment of ancient churches is by no
means confined to rural communities.” His
protest is one of which there was need of
utterance, but it isn’t easy to see how the
danger can be warded off. Education is a
slow process, where there is need of haste,
and at best it is not over thorough. He
points out the danger, in a peaceful little
Colonial church, of the big memorial win-
dow that the richest farmer puts behind the
pulpit—‘“‘loud and inharmonious in color,
frivolous in design, completely out of scale,
and in conflict with the refined and restful
feeling of the admirab!e old church.’”’ Some-
times the pulpit itself is the subject of at-
tack; and he tells of one village church of
which a loyal brother said, with pride: ‘‘Not
long ago our Endeavor Band raised money
and bought some transparent paper imi-
tating stained glass and put it on the old
window panes, and it seems just like the
real thing—don’t it now? You used to look
through them and ‘see only the blue sky,
and apple boughs, and restless birds mak-—
ing their nests, but now—.” Again, it is a
tower or ceiling that is done over, or an
incongruous addition that is made to the
structure—all very evil things indeed, to be
regretted and talked against, and which it
would be well to have the family religious
papers take up, since they might reach the
proper persons.

When colored glass
first became a factor
in the decorative arts

DOMESTIC of this country, for a
GLASS time it was” exten-
sively employed in do-

mestic embellishments,

but after a while it

ceased to be used in the finer houses, and
all because it fell out of the hands of artists
into those of commercial men, who had but

332

one aim in view: the making of money.
The sins they committed with colored glass
in the name of art were indeed startling, and
soon relegated the use of the material to
cheap flats and corner saloons. It is hard
to believe that this perversion can last for-
ever and that colored glass will not once
again take its place in the higher forms of
domestic decorations. At one time it looked
very much as if ecclesiastical glass would
fall into the same state of deterioration and
degradation, but happily a vigorous protest
and a determined resistance from a number
of earnest and conscientious architects
stemmed the tide, and rescued it from the
maelstrom of commercialism, bad taste and
secularization. This, together with a greater
knowledge of the principles of Christian art
among the people, the realization on the
part of building committees that the glaz-
ing of a church should be left in the hands
of the architect, as much as any other detail
in the architectural scheme, and that works
of art are not sold by the square foot, has
in these later years largely banished the
mere trader and his ‘art glass’ from the
field of ecclesiology. He can no longer, at
the behest of some ignorant donor, invade
a church building, remove mullions at will,
and place in the window openings a highly
colored, badly drawn and devotionless glass
picture.

There is no reason why domestic glass
should not be restored to its proper place in
the decorative arts, if architects will only
lend a hand, and insist that when colored
glass is used, it must be of the best in de-
sign and quality, and at a price which will
permit artists of ability to give their time
to the study of glass as a medium of artistic
expression. Then, and not until then, will
good windows be made, and domestic glass
be a delight to all lovers of color.

It is true that from time to time windows
have been created, and placed in public
buildings or private residences, that are in-
deed works of art, but they are few in num-
ber and have produced no _ appreciable
diminution in the output of the garish and
commonplace products of commercial es-
tablishments, and have in no way directed
the trend from mediocrity to the artistic
and beautiful. It is within the power and
province of the architects to bring about this
change, and windows like the two which
have recently been placed in a country house
near Philadelphia, and are here illustrated,
should stimulate them to make the effort.
They must keep in mind, however, that a
good window, like a good oil painting, com-
mands a high price, and it is absurd to sup-

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

pose an-artist will make a window for less
than a painting, or will devote his time to
an art which is not, as yet, fully appre-
ciated in highest manifestation.

The two windows illustrated were designed
by Miss Violet Oakley, and all the painted
portions are the direct work of her brush.
The themes portrayed are Shakespearian,
the first being from the Tempest: Act I.,
Scene IJ.—Ferdinand listening to the song of
the invisible Ariel—

Fer. Where should this music be? i’ the air or the

earth?
It sounds no more: and, sure, it waits upon
Some god o’ the island. Sitting on a bank,

Weeping again the king my father’s wreck,

This music crept by me upon the waters,

Allaying both their fury and my passion

With its sweet air: thence I have follow’d it,

Or it hath drawn me rather. But ’tis gone.
No, it begins again.
with Prospero and Miranda in the back-
ground, the latter exclaiming:
Mir. What is’t? a spirit?
Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,
It carries a brave form. But ’tis a spirit.
Pros. No, wench; it eats and sleeps and hath such
senses
As we have, such. This gallant which thou seest
Was in the wreck; and, but he’s something
stain’d
With grief that’s beauty’s canker, thou mightst
call him
A goodly person: he hath lost his fellows
And strays about to find ’em.
Mir. I might call him
A thing divine, for nothing natural
I ever saw so noble.

The second window is from Hamlet, that
memorable scene in Act III., where the
guilty King and Queen flee, after witnessing
the tragic catastrophe of the play, which
Hamlet caused to be acted before them, in
order to ‘‘catch the conscience of the King.”’
Ham. He poisons him i’ the garden for his estate.

His name’s Gonzago: the story is extant, and
written in very choice Italian: you shall see
anon how the murderer gets the love of Gon-
zago’s wife.

The composition of these windows is all
that could be desired; the Gramatic situation
illustrated has been handled in a most mas-
terly and decorative manner, which at once
commends itself to the connoisseur, while
the arrangement of the accessory ornamenta-
tions cannot help but receive a like com-
mendation from the decorator. The color
beauty of the windows is indescribable; so
subtle is the scheme of coloration, to be
understood it must be seen. Every piece
of glass has been carefully selected, not only
for its color but for its motion; every lead
line has been given a thoughtful considera-
tion; and every part has been governed by
a strict adherence to a pure mosaic motive;
while the glass painting is indeed glass paint-—
ing and not an imitation of painting on can-
vas. The very faults in drawing, which are
apparent here and there, but add another

NOTES AND

beauty, and, in a way, emphasize the decor-
rative character of the windows.

Surely the day of domestic glass, having
an artistic value, has not passed away, as
long as there are artists of Miss Oakley’s
genius to design and paint windows, and as-
sociations of artists and craftsmen to con-
struct and interpret in glass the artist’s
thoughts, for these beautiful windows cannot
help to call forth orders from cultivated
people, so that Miss Oakley and other artists
may be induced. to adventure into the field
of domestic colored glass work.

6.6,
UNIVERSITY Harvard University
SCHOLARSHIPS offers to members of
OF THE the Architectural
ARCHITECT: League of America
URAL LEAGUE three scholarships in
architecture. These

OF AMERICA

scholarships are di-
FOR 1908-1909

vided into two classes—
Class A. One scholarship which is restricted
to those who can pass the entrance exami-
nations of Harvard College. Class B. Two
scholarships for special students for which
there is no examination, but a competition
in architectural design to select the holders.

Class. A. This scholarship to regular
students is for one year with the pos-
sibility of reappointment for a _ second
year, conditioned upon the record of
the students made at the University. In
order to pass the examination candidates
should be graduates of a good high school or
have an equivalent preparation. In June
Harvard University holds examinations for
admission in the principal cities of this
country. The entrance examinations for this
year are held from June 22d to June 27th in-
clusive. These regular entrance examina-
tions will be taken by Class A candidates
and the scholarships will be awarded to the
student who passes with the highest stand-
ing. For a list of the subjects of the ex-
amination, the places of same for this year,
and for other information regarding admis-
sion to Harvard College write for pamphlet
to Mr. J. G. Hart, Secretary, Cambridge,
Mass. This officer will, upon request, also
send copies of recent examination papers.
Each club secretary will also have a copy
of the above pamphlet regarding admission.
Applications for such examinations should
be sent to that officer of Harvard University
by April 1st, and by this date the Chairman
of the Department of Architecture, Harvard
University, should receive applications for
the scholarship, such application being ap-
proved by the Secretary of the Architectural

COMMENTS... 333

Club of which the applicants are members,
and applications from individual members
being approved by the permanent secretary.
Candidates for the above scholarship would
do well to review carefully those subjects in
which they are to be examined.

Class B. Two scholarships for special stu-
dents, each for one year, will be awarded
upon the result of a competition in archi-
tectural design, on a program prepared by
the Architectural Department of Harvard
University. The competition in the various
cities will be conducted by the League
through the organizations affiliated with it,
and will be judged by the Professor of Archi-
tecture of Harvard University and a Boston
architect selected by the League. Provision
will be made for individual members of the
League.

Candidates for the above should notify the
Chairman of the Committee on University
Scholarships by April 1st of their intention
to take part in the competition. This com-
petition will be opened by a preliminary
sketch to be made on Saturday, May 2d.
One week will be allowed for making the
final drawings. Directions regarding the
conditions under which these drawings are
to be made, their size and manner of send-
ing them will be issued later. These scholar-
ships entitle their holders to free tuition in
Harvard University during the periods stated
above, the cost of such tuition otherwise be-
ing $150 per year.

It is hoped that a large number of men
will avail themselves of the splendid oppor-
tunity presented by the above. Further in-
formation may be had from the Chairman.

The Architectural League of America also
has a foreign traveling scholarship, for in-
formation regarding which apply to Pro-
fessor Percy Ash, Chairman, Committee on
Traveling Scholarship, George ‘Washington
University, Washington, D. C.

It is proposed to
A COMPETITION erect at East Walpole,

FOR Mass., in connection
LOW-COST with the F. W. Bird
& Son’s paper mills, a

DWELLING group of low-cost one-
HOUSES family cottages, similar

in construction to ex-
periments which the Bird concern has al-
ready made with its products, as an exterior
covering. A competition will be conducted
for the purpose of selecting designs for such
structures, the cost of which is not to ex-
ceed three thousand dollars.
The competition will be conducted under
rules of the American Institute of Architects.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD:

uihere: should His tinea]
of 1 or" sitll as it wa

Pim on nena su ents nol
o opm S ately pat 1s > the Ff i

STAINED GLASS WINDOW, PORTRAYING FERDINAND LISTENING TO THE SONG
OF THE INVISIBLE ARIEL.
Tempest: Act I, Scene II.
(Copyright by Violet Oakley, 1907.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Seen
ala reehy

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STAINED GLASS WINDOW, SUBJECT: SCENE FROM HAMLET, ACT. III., IN
WHICH THE GUILTY KING AND QUEEN FLEE, AFTER WITNESSING
THE TRAGIC CATASTROPHE OF THE PLAY WHICH HAMLET CAUSED TO
BE ACTED BEFORE THEM.

(Copyright by Violet Oakley, 1907.)

336

Professor Francis W. Chandler, of the Mass-
achusetts Institute of Technology at Bos-
ton, Mass., will receive competitive drawings
on or before April 1, 1908, in accordance
with a program which is being distributed
to ali architects by F. W. Bird & Son. With
Professor Chandler, Mr. Charles Collens, of
Allen & Collens, architects, acts as judge
in the competition.

The growth of mu-
nicipal improvement
ideals in Baltimore
makes a significant
chronicle. With the
great fire, there was a
suddenly awakened
wish on the part of
the people that the catastrophe might be
changed into an opportunity for a better
city plan in the burned district. No plan
was in readiness; but a hastily appointed
local commission did the best it could, pro-
posing the widening and changing of many
streets. Its recommendations were carried
out. Following this accomplishment, came
the engagement of the Olmsteds, through the
efforts of the Municipal Art Society, to make
a park plan. A very elaborate report, look-
ing far into the future, was outlined. But
step by step, and with remarkable pro-
gress, these recommendations are being
realized. And now has come the wish for
a civic centre, such as other cities are de-
veloping. Tentative plans were made by
local men, and then an expert commission
from outside—composed of Messrs. Carrére,
Brunner, and Olmsted—was called in to pass
upon it. Ground has been selected east of
the city hall, and it is proposed to purchase
it at once, put it in proper condition, and
then group around it the five new public
buildings which are going to be needed in
the near future. These are an annex to the
city hall, a new police headquarters, a new
central police station, a state building and
a new polytechnic institute. Hach building
will have to be financed separately when its
turn comes, just as it would have to be
whatever its location; but this plan makes
possible a grouping and a cumulative effect.
As a recent court decision has considerably
increased the revenues of the park board,
which are mainly derived from a street rail-
road tax, it is proposed that the income
shall be used to pay the fixed charges on a
big loan, with which the civic centre prop-
erty and certain property for park exten-

BALTIMORE’S
ADVANCE

THE ARCGITECTURAL RECORD:

sion and a new boulevard can be purchased.
The whole makes a remarkable story of ad-
vance,

In regard to the im-
provement of the build-
ings and grounds of
small stations, by rail-
road corporations that
are not likely to au-
thorize expenditures
for sentiment only,
Joseph T. Richards is quoted as presenting
the railroad’s viewpoint in a recent address
as follows—the significance of the statement
being that the speaker is the general en-
gineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad: ‘‘Many
years ago,’ said he, “the managers of the
Pennsylvania road were convinced that im-—
provements about suburban stations which
could be made on the ground, where there
was property surrounding the station, were
equally important with the station itself,
and, in fact, it has been held by many citi-
zens as well as railroad managers that the
station property was of first importance.

It was found that the towns with sta-
tions having beautiful surroundings were
growing more rapidly than others, and in
taking up the subject with property owners
at the neglected stations, it was mutually
agreed that the company and the property
Owners should co-operate, and wherever
there was a disposition on the part of prop-
erty owners to build houses the railroad would
build a station—not necessarily an expensive
building, but with attractive surroundings
of lawn, shrubbery and flowers, providing a
considerable area of ground for the pur-
pose. While all was not done in a year, the
policy was continued and the manager of
this road has declared that if he could add
a half dozen new houses to a town it would
pay the interest on $5,000 or $6,000 ex-
pended for station purposes, if applied under
what we would call civic betterments.” This
is an interesting and helpful presentation of
the economic argument.

IMPROVING
SMALL
STATIONS

IN RE ILLINOIS ATHLETIC ASSOCIA-
TION.

The building which is shown on page 222
of the March issue is not, as it is there
stated, of the Chicago Athletic Association,
but of the Illinois Athletic Association. The
recent addition to the Chicago Athletic Club
was published in the February issue of this
year.

So a TT I EN a

EG aes

VoL. XXIII. No. 5. MAY, 1908. WHote No 116

SAAN AE NAAR TNA

| “Ta” ce ORR
aS ee er ee pete.
:* RNS) ve eee rests
&

|| THE BUILDING OF CINCINNATI ....................eeeeeeee.

Tlustrated. Montgomery Schuyler.

THE ECOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS: WHAT ITS ARCHITECTURAL
TEACHING MEANS....................eceee ecccevccovcs SOL

Paul Cret.

SOME RECENT WAREHOUSES...................... J ceceeee 373
Illustrated. Russell Sturgis.

THE NEW YORK CITY HALL: A PIECE OF ARCHITECTURAL

STORY eee etiatea oe cic irae eerie oe ee ees 387
Montgomery Schuyler.
SOME BUSINESS BUILDINGS IN ST. LOUIS.................. 391

Illustrated William Herbert.

AN ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTOR: LORENZO DI MARIANO...... 397
Tilustrated. Alfred H. Gumaer.

NOTES AND COMMENTS == Illustrated 409

An Architectural Comparison—Lessons from Crosby
Hall—Another Boston Vision—Mayor McClellan on
City Beauty—Playground Progress—R. A. Cram on
City Building—Plans for Columbus, Ohio—State
Fair Plans—Discussion of City Planning—New York
Art Commission—A Departure in Church Decora-
tion—Modern Baths and Bath Houses—Academy
Architecture.

PUBLISHED BY
THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD CO.

Erveldent CLINTON W. SWEET ‘Treasurer, F. W. Dope:
Vico- :
Genl. ie W.Dersmonp = Secretary, F. T. Minter

11-15 EAST 24TH STREET, MANHATTAN
Telephone, 4430 Madison Square

Subscription (Yearly) $3.00 Published Monthly

OFFICE OF PUBLICATION: No. 1! EAST 24th STREET, NEW YORK CITY
WESTERN OFFICE: 84! MONADNOCK BLDC., CHICACO, ILL.

Architectural Rerord

Vol. XXIII

MAY, 1908.

No. 5.

The Building of Cincinnati

Cincinnati is both fortunately placed
and fortunately named. It may well
have seemed to the first man who looked
upon its site with a speculative eye, the
predestinated seat of a great city. It did
seem so to, very likely, the first observer
of that kind, no other than the “‘Cincin-
natus of the West,’ as Byron calls him.
For it was no other than George Wash-
ington who, in his explorations of the
Ohio, saw “Round Bottom” and quite
possibly foresaw something like Cincin-
nati, so far as any human prevision of
imagination could at that time have fore-
seen the expansion of the West. Curious,
even as this sketch is begun, the news-
papers tell us that the “pre-emption” of
the Pater Patriae is about to be brought
into court with some other of his spec-
ulative purchases in the Ohio Valley by
his surviving legal representatives. As
a speculator in real estate it may be said
of Washington as in politics it was said
of Burke, that he was “wise too soon.”
He saw too far ahead to “realize” dur-
ing <<s — Aitetime: The “carrying
charges” of his investments in the Val-
ley of the Ohio, even of such of them as
came to him in the form of military
bounties, would have been more than he
could bear, but for that lucky Custis
marriage with which his Virginia neigh-
bor twitted him, the Custis marriage,
with its consequences in the location ot
the Federal City on the banks of the Po-
tomac, where it would so inevitably en-
hance the value of the Custis estate. It
was well for Washington that this latter
enterprise in “promotion and _ develop-

ment’’ ran its course before the advent
of a free and fearless press. Otherwise
to what disclosures and denunciations
would such a press have treated “Boss
George” and his “real estate deal.”
None of his other operations in land,
however, was so farsighted as this one
at Round Bottom, or could have been,
unless, indeed, it had occurred to him to
invest at “Fort Duquesne” and wait to
see what would happen to it after it had
been renamed for William Pitt.
Meanwhile the place, of which the
original name was “Losantiville,’ may
be said to have been named after the
greatest of the Cincinnatians. The fort
that preceded or accompanied the origi-
nal settlement was certainly so named.
There is, however, no proof that he ever
set foot on the site of Cincinnati. Al-
though the fort that was built upon it
was named after him, about the location
of that fort hangs a local legend. The
legend is that original settlement and
army post were at North Bend, sixteen
miles away. The Lotharian command-
ing officer of the post had cast lawless
eyes upon the wife of a farmer, and to
escape his unwelcome attentions, unwel-
come, at least to the husbandman, the
husbandman shifted his settlement to
where Cincinnati now stands. Not thus
to be balked, the military Lotharian dis-
covered good professional reasons for
shifting also the site of the fort. Hence
“Fort Washington”; hence, perhaps, ul-
timately Cincinnati. It is not the most
dignified genesis of a great city, but
there are others as queer or queerer. A

‘yoouTWoIV ‘oqomey “H upmefueg ‘(LTST) ‘olyO ‘TyeUUIDUIO

ii dcteie oe : ,

THE BUILDING

monument in the city, built of stone, but
in imitation of a blockhouse, bears a
bronze tablet setting forth that it occu-
pies what was the centre of the stockade
about the fort. There: is:a dearth,

as in American settlements is apt to
be the case, either of documents or of
tradition, about the actual origin of the
place, and no evidence that I have been
able to come upon that among the actual!

OF CINCINNATI.

339

the earliest on the “beautiful river” un-
less Pittsburg at its source be older.
Pittsburg to be sure was incorporated
as a village in 1794, but not as a city un-
til 1816, whereas the municipal corpor-
ation of Cincinnati dates from 1814. Be
that as it may, as the country back of it
was opened up to settlement, Cincinnati
throve and increased. It must have had
its twenty odd thousands in 1827, when

NO. 2._JEWISH TEMPLE.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

founders were any of the retired Revo-
lutionary officers who had beaten their
swords into plough shares, whether ac-
tual members of the: Society of the Cin-
cinnati or not. But the name neverthe-
less would serve at least to date the set-
tlement pretty nearly, as within the last
two decades of the eighteenth century,
and it sufficiently appears that the ear-
liest settlers were Jerseymen and the ear-
liest settlement in 1788, making it thus

James K. Wilson, Architect.

poor Mrs. Trollope was tempted to set up
a “fancy store” in it and, failing utterly,
took her revenge by writing the ‘“Do-
mestic Manners of the Americans.”
Doubtless the Cincinnatians of the third
decade of the nineteenth century were
a rough lot, and the impression they
made on the authoress was such as they
were bound to make on an English lady.
One who now candidly rereads the “Do-
mestic Manners of the Americans’’ finds

340

no warrant for taxing the authoress with
unkindness. But. -- candid . American
readers for a British book on America
were eighty years ago almost impossi-
ble to find. American readers were too
provincial and too skinless to be fair. On
the other hand, our succeeding British
censor, whose “American Notes” raised

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD;

its bloody coxcomb. Here is the pass-
age, from the “American Notes’:

Cincinnati is a beautiful city; cheerful,
thriving, and animated. I have not often seen
a place that commends itself so favorably and
pleasantly to a stranger at the first glance as
this does: with its clean houses of red and
white, its well-paved roads and footways of
bright tile. Nor does it become less prepos-
sessing on a closer acquaintance. The streets

NO. 3.—K. K. BENE ISRAEL TEMPLE, AVONDALE.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

a storm of objurgation to which the re-
ception of the “Domestic Manners” was
a zephyr, Charles Dickens, to wit, who
visited Cincinnati some fifteen years af-
ter Mrs. Trollope had shaken its mud

from her substantial British bottines,
Charles Dickens, in 1842. had something
to say about Cincinnati which ought to
have been balm to its green wounds and

Tietig & Lee, Architects.

are broad and airy, the shops extremely good,
the private residences remarkable for their
elegance and neatness. There is something
of invention and fancy in the varying styles of
these latter erections, which, after the dull
company of the steamboat, is perfectly de-
lightful as conveying an assurance that there
are such qualities still in existence. The dis-
position to ornament these pretty villas and
render them attractive, leads to the culture of
trees and flowers, and the laying-out of well-
kept gardens, the sight of which, to those who
walk about the streets is inexpressibly re-

|
f

THE BUILDING

freshing and agreeable. I was quite charmed
with the appearance of the town, and its ad-
joining suburb of Mount Auburn; from which
the city, lying in an amphitheatre of hills,
forms a picture of remarkable beauty, and is
seen to great advantage. The society
with which I mingled was intelligent, courte-
ous, and agreeable. The inhabitants of Cin-
cinnati are proud of their city, as one of the
most interesting in America; and with good

OF CINCINNATI. 341

tation of the whiskey-guzzling, tobacco-
ruminant Cincinnatians of 1827. Much,
doubtless, depends upon the point of
view. Dickens was not a disappointed
shopkeeper, but a picturesque tourist.
But much also must be ascribed to a
real change in the subject of the picture.

NO. 4.—SOLDIERS’ AND SAILORS’ MEMORIAL HALL.
Hannaford & Sons, Architects.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

reason; for beautiful and thriving as it is now,
and containing as it does a population of fifty
thousand souls, but two and fifty years have
passed away since the ground on which it stands
(bought at that time for a few dollars) was a
wild wood, and its citizens were but a handful
of dwellers in scattered log huts upon the riv-
er’s shore.

This is a very different picture, in
1842, from poor Mrs. Trollope’s presen-

The crudities had ripened. But there
is at least one piece of evidence that in
the Cincinnati of 1827 there was a re-
finement incompatible with the notion
that the “Domestic Manners” the En-
glish critic depicted were all-pervading.
just as the architectural relics of colo-
nial Annapolis or colonial Charleston

342

tell unmistakably the story of the social
amenities of those who inhabited them
that story is told by the house which
Martin Baum built in Cincinnati in 1817,
and for which he was well inspired to
choose for his architect Benjamin H.
Latrobe, then fulfilling the last year ot
his service as architect of the Capitol
at Washington (Illustration No. 1). It

THE ARCHITDOLRURAIL KECORD,

do so, and long before any other Ameri-
can architect had done so as to anticipate
the Greek revival which did not really set
in as a fashion for some years after his
death, The Baum house (the Taft
house, as it now is, the Longworth house
as it has been modernly known in Cincin-
nati) exemplifies this preference. It has
the air, it will be seen, of a country seat,

NO. 6.—MUSIC HALL.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

is quite unmistakably Latrobe’s, to
those who know the work that he
was doing in Baltimore and elsewhere
in those years, and who remember his in-
sistence, in design as well as in words,
upon “simplicity” as the first of archi-
tectural qualities. It was this preference
that induced him to revert from the Ren-
aissance to the models of classical Athe-
nian antiquity as soon as he was able to

Hannaford & Sons, Architects.

rather than of a town house, recalling the
“seats” of the Virginian and Maryland
magnates of its period in its lateral ex-
tension and in its vertical restriction, as
well as in the amplitude of its grounds.
It might very well have been the abode of
the original “Cincinnatus of the West” if
he had chosen the banks of the Ohio in-
stead of those of the Potomac. It has
in fact the air of having been built for

H. H. Richardson, Architect.

Diedihcdte t4-tde shakes:

bob iredy
Reni es rn ae" Bas Bees

CINCINNATI,

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THE BUILDING -OF
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Ohio.

incinna

344

the ““Patroon” of Cincinnati, which’ in
virtue of his acquisition of land Wash-
ington virtually was. The reduction ot

the portico to a porch shows a _ willing-
ness to sacrifice to practicality, of which

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

classical proportions. On the other hand,
the sacrifice of classicality to practicality
in the attic of the central block, attic ap-
parently required for servants’ quarters
or other subordinate uses and _ lighted

NO. 8.—Y. M. C.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

the results are architecturally rather un-
fortunate. A tetrastyle “order” seems to
be indicated, or if not that, a distyle of
much less attenuated columns, even with
pedestals, if necessary to bring them into

A. BUILDING.
James W. McLaughlin, Architect.

from its own “ox-eyes,” ignoring the re-
quirement of some dividing member be-
tween it and its substructure, is archi-
tecturally effective, waiving convention
and precedent, which Latrobe always

345

THE BUILDING OF CINCINNATI,

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Cincinnati

346

took a pleasure in waiving, provided
there was anything to be gained by the
waiver.
the “composition” is attained. It is only
a pity that the porch should be so ex-
crescential.

NO. 10.—CITIZENS’
Cincinnati, Ohio.

There are other things in Cincinnati
of those politically formative but archi-
tecturally still colonial years, though
none so interesting as this relic. The
next manifestations of an Interest in
architecture were those of the Greek re-
vival, now become a fashion, and the
most noteworthy of them were contrib-

The central block is signalized, .

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

uted by that zealous and busy Greek re-
vivalist Isaiah Rogers, who made the
home of his maturity in Cincinnati, and
died there in 1869. His specialties, one
may say, were porticoed or colonnaded
public buildings and hotels of solid

UESSANi

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=
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Sent
ees

NATIONAL BANK.
Hannaford & Sons, Architects.

granite. These marked his career west-
ward from Boston, where the Custom
House, done in collaboration with the
Government Architect, Ammi B. Young,
stands for an example of one and the
Tremont House stood, until it was sup-
planted by a skyscraper as an example
of the other, through New York, which

347

THE BUILDING OF CINCINNATI.

.—TRACTION BUILDING,

NO.

D. H. Burnham & Co., Architects.

Ohio.

incinna

Isis

—INGALLS BUILDING.

12.

NO.

Elzner & Anderson, Architects.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

349

THE BUILDING OF CINCINNATI.

NO. 13.—TEXTILE BUILDING.

Gustav W. Drach, Architect.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

309

he endowed with the old Custom House
in Wall Street, and the Astor House in
Broadway, to Cincinnati, where in one
genre he remodeled the Court House and

THe ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

one to the other of the bordering streets.
On the whole, Cincinnati is less for-
tunate in relics of this period than
New York and Boston, where the works

=< (i!

sean OFF

"aaah MES

fon
fin
@ tin
hag ul i

NO. 14.—PUGH BUILDING.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

in the other built the Burnet House. The
former was destroyed by a mob in 1884.
The latter still stands, though shorn of
some of its architectural pretensions by
the shifting of the main entrance from

Dittoe & Wisenall, Architects.

of Rogers still continue to praise him
and to hold their own very well in the
competition of subsequent fashions. For
the architectural history of every Amer-
ican town that counts its century of dura-

THE BUILDING OF CINCINNATI.

tion is curiously like the history of every
other. Its builders have taken up their
styles not out of conviction but as fol-
lowers of the fashion, and when _ the
fashion gives signs of change, they rush
headlong, with an air of devil take the
hindmost which is almost equally comic
and pathetic, after the new fashion, ready
to drop that with equal precipitation

| 3 CINNAT,
ae ION
a : 2RGHEST

‘| &
K 2%
a

NO. 15.—BALDWIN

Cincinnati, Ohio.

when that in turn threatens to be sup-
planted.

In Cincinnati, as elsewhere, after the
Greek revival, the Gothic revival. Cin-
cinnati was rather exceptionally fortu-
nate in its Gothic revival. The “move-
ment” began about as early as elsewhere
and lasted rather longer. In addition to
producing a number of rational and re-
spectable and attractive buildings, it
gave his opportunity to an architect ot
a talent for which one might without
much perversion employ a more preten-
tious name. One may say so now, since

351

Mr. James K. Wilson has been dead for
some years. On the first visit to Cincin-
nati of the present commentator, a visit
which he regrets to have to own is fur-
ther away now than that of Dickens was
then, the attention of the sensitive

stranger was at once compelled to cer-
tain commercial buildings which were
very far from the “regular thing” in the

PIANO FACTORY.
Elzner & Anderson, Architects.

business building of those days. . To
one who was in the habit of admiring
Mr. Leopold Eidlitz’s Continental Bank
and American Exchange Bank in New
York, as refreshing departures from the
regular thing there, these Cincinnatian
buildings appealed with peculiar force,
since they ‘were evidently motived by a
like admiration. They were in tle same
style, which the detail designated as
German Gothic, and even in the same
material of olive sandstone. They were
marked by the same careful proportion-
ing of the stories, the same expanse and

352

emphasis of the terminal piers, and the
same studied grouping of the openings,
multiplied in the upper story into an ar-
cade. The detail was as well studied as
the composition, and they were in Cin-
cinnati as in New York very welcome
objects. No longer visible in either case,
the New York examples having long since
been superseded by skyscrapers, the Cin-
cinnatian examples demolished or al-
tered beyond recognition. The more the
pity in each case, for the Cincinnatian
buildings were by no means copies or
servile imitations, but had an independ-
ent interest. In the business quarter of
Cincinnati, the only work of Mr. Wil-
son’s that remains is, I think, the Jewish
Temple (No. 2), which, like the Temple
Emanu-F]1 in Fifth Avenue, derives its
chief architectural interest from _ the
combination of Saracenic and Gothic mo-
tives and from the clever adaptation of
Oriental detail, although there is little
specific resemblance, and although the
New York example is, of course, on a
much more elaborate and costly scale, as
well as of much more artistic importance.
The convention that the architecture of
a synagogue should be Orientalized has
its uses at least in marking the structure
for identification. That advantage is put
in a clear light when we remark a later
synagogue in Cincinnati (No. 3), ot
which the general architectural scheme
and the technical “style” are indistin-
guishable from those of a Soldiers’ and
Sailors’ Memorial Hall (No. 4). It is
not clear why either of these edifices, so
diverse in purpose should follow that
scheme and that style, nor, if so, which.
But it is in the suburbs, as we shall see,
that the most characteristic and success-
ful of the remaining works of this Gothic
revivalist are to be found.

Nevertheless, the commercial quarter
of Cincinnati has its architectural inter-
est. “The réservation. of: “Fountain
Square’ was such a tribute to private
munificence, the munificence of Mr.
Probasco, whose gift to the city the
fountain was, as hardly any other Amer-
ican municipality had the grace to make
at that time. Such a tribute is not so
common even now. Cincinnati gets the
benefit of it in the enhanced effective-

THE ARCHITECT ORAL RECORD.

ness not only of the sculptural monu-
ment itself, but of all the surrounding
buildings. The only one of the sur-
rounding buildings in which full advan-
tage has been taken of the detachment
is the Carew building, which very suit-
ably furnishes a background for the
fountain and terminates the vista of the
‘oasis, page 386. Another relic of the Vic-
torian Gothic revival is the Music Hall
(No. 6), which suffers much from the
lack of some such detachment and fore-
ground as a like reservation with that of
Fountain Square would have supplied to
it. It is forced forward to the sidewalk, so
that it is difficult to get the general view
for which it was designed. It can be
dated with considerable confidence, from
its own architectural evidence, as one
of the buildings which were inspired, on
both sides of the Atlantic, by Sir Gilbert
Scott’s essay in secular Gothic in the
Midland Station in London. It is a
real composition, and is highly com-
mendable for its comparative quietude
in a style in which it seems from so many
extant examples that keeping quiet was
the most difficult thing for a designer
to do.

Like every other American town, Cin-
cinnati, after its little futile dalliance
with “Queen Anne,” submitted to its
phase of Richardsonian Romanesque as
the next stage of its architectural evolu-
tion. To call it evolution were, of course,
to insult the memory of Darwin, since
evolution implies a direction and a prog-
ress, which things are incompatible with
jumping from one fashion to another
without visible motive. We can no more
call such changes of fashion evolutionary
in architecture than in millinery. But at
least Cincinnati was very lucky in its
chief example of the Richardsonian Ro-
manesque. It had the advantage of having
it done by Richardson himself, and the
Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce (No.
7) is one of the most characteristic and
most creditable of his works. It is a
most instructive example of his talent for
simplification. A big, light room, with
the substructure and the superstructure
obviously subordinate and dependent,
that was the conception that he wrought
out in his vigorous, masculine way, so

353

THE BUILDING OF CINCINNATI,

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THE ARCHITECT ORAL RECORD,

NO. 18.—BRANCH LIBRARY, WALNUT HILLS.
Cincinnati, Ohio. McLaughlin & Gilmore, Architects.

NO. 17.—DEUTSCHES ALTENHEIM.
Cincinnati, Ohio. James W. McLaughlin, Architect.

THE BUILDING OF CINCINNATI. 355

NO. 19.—FIRST CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEM.
Cincinnati, Ohio. Elzner & Anderson, Architects.

Sak tained

a eee
ys
i

NO. 20.—AVONDALE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH.
Cincinnati, Ohio. Elzner & Anderson, Architects.

350

that the wayfaring man cannot possibly
err therein. It might have been even
more effective if practical considerations
had allowed him to dispense with the
subordinate story or in fact double story
above the great hall, and tu set his para-
pet-story and his dormers directly above
the chamber which is in effect the buila-
ing. But it is immensely effective as it
is, and much is sacrificed to the simplic-
ity of the scheme. How many archi-
tects would have had the courage to
make nothing, in such a building, of the
entrance, which is here but one opening
of many, and hardly signalized at all in
treatment above its fellows, by no means
allowed to assert itself to the extent of
coming into any competition with the tall
arcades, enclosed between their solid
flanking turrets, of which the expanse
and the solidity are so skilfully empha-
sized by the treatment. And how sim-
plifying and unifying the great wedge ot
roof, which the jutting dormers relieve
without weakening. We no longer do
Provencal Romanesque, it is true, and
Richardson’s technical “‘style’ is obso-
lete. But his personal style is not obso-
lete. His constant quest for simplicity
and repose, for “Quiet,” as he used to
roll it out in his orotund way, and his
constant insistence on those qualities,
have not ceased and will not cease to ot-
fer their lessons to his successors, in
whatever of the historical styles they may
be working, or even though they should
come to work in a style that they are to
make historical. Meanwhile, the Cin-
cinnati Chamber of Commerce is a most
valuable municipal possession.

The Richardsonian fashion passed
away, all the same, and was succeeded
as elsewhere, leaving in its wake not only
the master’s piece, which comes so near
being his masterpiece, but such moderate
and agreeable and unpretentious exam-
ples as the building of the Y. M. C. A.
(No. 8). First the elevator building
with real walls, and then the skeleton ot
the skyscraper, were destined to succeed
it for commercial purposes. As is apt
to be the case, the former is architectur-
ally more attractive than the latter.
Whatever the fact may be, it is evident
that the Sinton Hotel (No. 9) and the

THe ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

Citizens’ National Bank (No. 10) are
susceptible of construction in actual ma-
sonry. The widening of the terminal
piers, especially great and_ especially
grateful in the case of the latter building
is therefore quite plausible, while it would
be at least wasteful in the case of a steel
skeleton veneered with masonry. The
hotel looks a good deal like a good many
others, but the bank has real distinction.
When we come, however, upon such an
unmistakable example of the skeleton
construction as the Traction building
(No. I1) we come upon the pretence of
a construction which would manifestly be
impracticable. Of course, this is a crit-
icism which “runs at large” and is not
to be imputed to the designers of these
particular buildings, although to the de-
signer of the stereotyped pattern of sky-
scraper we may apply what was said oi
the mob of gentlemen who wrote with
ease pentameter couplets more or less in
the manner of Pope, that one no more
admires a man for being able to write
them than for being able to write his
own name. The Ingalls building (No.
12) is apparently, in the photograph, an
exemplification of the same _ -truth.
In fact, however, it is constructed
of ferro-concrete, veneered with marble
and terra-cotta, and is a pioneer in the
application of that made of construction
to the skyscraper. The unaffected ugli-
ness and bare utilitarianism, for instance,
of the Textile building (No. 13), which
is plainly and, so to say, avowedly incon-
structible in masonry, become rather dig-
nified in comparison with the pretension
of the more “architecturesque” sky-
scrapers, though to be sure, the cornice
projecting above the eighth story of the
Textile Building is as manifest as it 1s
a futile sacrifice to the graces. One pre-
fers that straightforward cage, the
Pugh Building (No. 14) with which the
advertisements plastered over its flank
are not in the least incongruous. But a
much more grateful object than any ot
these skyscrapers is the Baldwin Factory
(No. 15), which carries no ornament
that can be said to be incongruous with
its utilitarian purpose, and yet the de-
sign of which, it is quite evident, has re-
ceived successful architectural consider-

;

Cincinnati, Ohio.

THE DOLE DING.. OF CINCINNATI. BED

NO. 21.—DEXTPR CHAPEL, SPRING GROVE CEMETERY.
James K. Wilson, Architect.

358

ation. After the skeletons, the wearied
eye reposes upon it with much satisfac-
tion.

Dit < it. is not in. the. ‘city, proper
that one is to look for the most attrac-
tive building of Cincinnati. Now, as in
Dickens’s time, it is the “amphitheatre

NO.
Cincinnati, Ohio.

of hills” that makes the charm of the
city, accharm. that, 1. think, no © other
American city precisely possesses in the
same degree. The upper of the two ter-
races on which the city proper is built
swings around it to form this amphithe-
atre, and indicates itself as.a ring of sub-

THE ARCHITECT ORAL’ RECORD,

urbs. Already in Dickens’s time, as we
have seen, the opportunity had been suf-
ficiently improved to attract his admira-
tion. But with the outward expansion
of Cincinnati it has been improved much
more thoroughly and extensively. Now
there is scarcely a city, even Bos-

22.—SCHOENBERGER RESIDENCE, CLIFTON.

James K. Wilson, Architect.

ton, of which the suburbs are so impor-
tant to the general effect. One has not
seen Cincinnati until, like the Psalmist
in Zion, he has gone around about her,
marked well her bulwarks and consid-
ered her palaces. It is in the ring of
suburbs that the best not only of the

THE BUILDING OF CINCINNATI. 359

NO. 24.—PETER G. THOMPSON RESIDENCE ON COLLEGE HILL.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

James Gamble Rogers, Architect.

NO. 23.—FRANK PERIN RESIDENCE, CLIFTON.
James W. McLaughlin, Architect.

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28.—HAZEN RESIDENCE, AVONDALE.

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NO.
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Cincinnati, Ohio
Cincinnati, Ohio.

THE BUILDING OF CINCINNATI, 363

Cincinnati, Ohio.

NO. 29.—RESIDENCE OF MRS. HUGH SMYTHE.
Elzner & Anderson, Architects.

NO. 30.—RESIDENCE OF MR. C. W. BELL.
Elzner & Anderson, Architects.

364

domestic building but of the church
building and even of the institutional
building, of all, in fact, except of the
strictly commercial building is to be
soucnt and found. “Not, as a. rule,
“palaces,” but of a more appropriate
suburbanity, the “villas” and the ‘well-
kept gardens” of 1842, but far better
done as well as far more numerous.
Even the churches, one notes with pleas-
ure, even the “institutions” paretake of
this character of suburbanity. One may

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THE ARCHITECTURAL: RECORD.

parish church in England. A very much
more elaborated Gothic is seen in the
mortuary chapel in Spring Grove, one
of the most noteworthy of the works of
Mr. ‘James K- Wilson (No. 21). Un-
fortunately it lacks the logic of its origi-
nal in an important point. A vault the
thrust of which the actual flying but-
tresses would really abut is inconceivable.
But if we waive that infelicity, what
specimen have we in America of as high-
ly developed or as ornate Gothic in min-

. 31—DREWEY RESIDENCE.

Cincinnati, Ohio.

be allowed to hold the opinion that the
Museum in Eden Park (No.16) is a more
appropriate edifice for its site and func-
tion than it would be if it were built just
now and submitted to the rigid symme-
try and the pompous ornamentation of
the present fashion, while the ‘‘comfort-
able bourgeoisie” of the Deutsches Alt-
enheim (No. 17) as well as the recall of
the German Renaissance in its treat-
ment, will-be recognized as eminently
suitable. The best of the churches also,
such a studiously unpretentious and pic-
turesque group as that of Church of the
New Jerusalem (No. 19), have a char-
acter not only suburban but rural, and
hark back to the prototype of a country

Elzner & Anderson, Architects.

lature which is more successful than
this? Itisagem inits kind. The kind, in-
deed, is one of which we have few suc-
cessful examples. The late Mr. R. M.
Upjohn’s gates of Greenwood is the only
other one which occurs to me at the
moment, and a very successful example
it doubtless is. But it will be agreed
that the Cincinnatian example loses
nothing in comparison with that in
Brooklyn. nay, that it loses nothing
by comparison with any of the works in
its own kind of the revived Gothic in
Victorian England.

An equally successful piece of Gothic
in quite another kind, by the same artist,
is the Shoenberger house at Clifton (No.

THE BUILDING

And here an equal success means

22).
a superior achievement, seeing that the
dwelling is at once so much more. diffi-
cult and so much less precedented than

the memorial chapel. There are a hun-
dred Gothic precedents for the Dexter
Chapel, from the Sainte Chapelle down-
wards. Even to reproduce one of them,
even to reproduce one of them as nearly
as Sir: Gilbert ».Scott. reproduced’. the
Sainte Chapelle in the Exeter college
chapel, Anglicizing it in the reproduc-
tion, .requires, it is true, a nice feeling
for detail and a nice sense of scale. Ii
the result be successful, it is a ‘schol-
arly’ piece: of: architecture. “And the
Dexter chapel is all the more a scholarly
and academic success because it has not
(at least to the present reviewer’s knowl-
edge, it has not) any single and particu-
lar prototype, any specific “model.” But
there is, there can be, no particular pre-
edent for a country house set on a hill,
as in this instance, so as to command
the vista of the valley below, and
in L’Enfant’s excellent phrase, “to pre-
serve reciprocity of sight” between it-
self and the most interesting points of
the landscape. The problem, in fact,
puts the designer on his own resources
and enforces upon him an original com-
position, by the overwhelming improb-
ability that he can find a composition
ready made that will fit his conditions.
This is a very different problem from a
street front or even from a single aisled
Gothic chapel which in its composition is
so abundantly precedented ; and it is cor-
respondingly more arduous. It is not
much in the way of the architecture
fashionable to-day, the training of
whose practitioners furnishes them with
very few facilities for solving it, and
who, we may assume, would accordingly
evade it. But they must agree that, in
the Shoenberger house of a generation
standing it has been met and overcome,
and they cannot withhold his meed of ap-
plause from the architect who solved it
so successfully. Some of the same praise
is due to the animated picturesqueness
of the Perin residence in the same sub-
urb of: Clitton (No.. 23).

There is one “palatial” exception to
the rule that the domestic building of

OF CINCINNATI. 365
Cincinnati is not palatial, one example of
a “‘villa” in the Italian sense as well as
in the Italian style. This is the Thomp-
son residence on College Hill (No. 24).
This is much more in the regular way of
the most modern of our palatiai country
seats. It has even, along with an abun-
dance of foreign precedents, one specific
precedent, if not prototype, on this side
of the Atlantic, in the garden front of
the late Richard Morris Hunt’s design
for the “Marble House” in Newport.
This it follows in the scheme of a re-
cessed centre about equal in extent to
that of the two flanking and projecting
wings, in the concealed and balustraded
roof, in the classic style and even in the
material. If we take this, which prob-
ably we have no authority for doing, as
a re-study of that, we shall have to give
the palm to the Western example, to ad-
mit that the later artist has been the more
successful, whether more happily in-
spired, or, which for the spectator comes
to the same thing, luckier in his practical
conditions. There cannot be much ques-
tion that the changes are all improve-
ments. It was an improvement to double
the pilasters at the angles of the wings
and to leave out the intermediate pilas-
ter of what we are assuming as the
“original” substituting in each story a
single central opening for the two open-
ings. It was an improvement to increase
from four to five the openings of the re-
cessed centre, so as to enable the con-
struction of a hexastyle instead of a pen-
tastyle order, and it was an improvement
to substitute the engaged Ionic columns
for the Corinthian pilasters. Given the
classic» ‘scheme. the “atchitect of «tite
Cincinnati house is to be congratulated
on the scholarly and exemplary execu-
tion of the same. One must be rather a
fanatical romanticist to prefer to this
garden front that of the Hanna resi-
dence, for example, though not to main-
tain that this latter would be more
eligible than the other if it were as well
done. But, on the other hand, romanti-
cism is again vindicated by the appro-
priateness, for a house overlooking and,
indeed, “beetling”’ over the river from a
cliff, of the design of the Ault residence
(No. 26). Between this and the clas-

366

sic garden front we may admit that the
question is one of that taste about which
there is no disputing.

Of course the prototypes of the resi-
dential building of Cincinnati and_ its
suburbs are no more than those of any
other American city, confined to the
Gothic and the classic. ‘There is the
“Ttalian villa” according to the more
usual and less accurate American accept-
ation of the term than that which ap-
plies to so costly and pretentious an ex-
ample of the real thing at the garden
front of the Thompson residence, an ac-
ceptation in which the pretension
reaches no further than the making of
a sensible and comfortable abode. This
version lends itself with special facility
to walls covered with stucco, or to the
newer fangled construction in solid con-
crete, in either of which, indeed, the
square belvidera and the absence of
mouldings are apt to be the only re-
maining badges of the style. A success-
ful Cincinnatian example is the Hoadly
house in the Grandin road (No. 27).
The chateau of the French Renaissance
in a reduced state has furnished another
type which has been found eligible.
Though involving much more of elabora-
tion than the Americanized villa and a
negotiable example of this is shown in
the Hazen house at Avondale (No. 28),
though the purist might wish that the
architect had chosen some other and
more congruous form of gate-post than
the square brick pier surmounted with
a stone ball which he has been accus-
tomed to identify with the British Han-
overian from Queen Anne to the last of
the Georges. But, as usual in domestic
architecture, one turns with particular
interest to the vernacular work which
does not profess adherence to any his-
torical style, nor propose to itself any
particular prototype, to the house which
is straightforwardly made out of its
own elements and requirements, which
is of no style and which yet has style.
Such a house is the pretty and unpre-
tending bungalow (if we must find a
type for it) (No. 29), with its lower
story of brick and its upper of plaster,
with its spreading roof of tile and its
verandah on the side that commands the

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

view. All traditional architecture is
abandoned or forgotten, as completely as
if the builder had never heard of it. But
his work is none the worse for that, and
is, perhaps, all-the-more -exemplary.

Reverting to the “regular thing” one
naturally finds in frequency examples of
the Colonial, of which we have space
for but one or two. No. 30 is designated
as Colonial, indeed, only by the projected
and pedimented porte-cochére. Without
that, it would be as nondescript as our
last example, merely a comfortable
mansion, without the successful study
of composition and adjustment of detail
that go to make the other nondescript
a work of architectural art. And the
porch, which is the only “architectur-
esque’ feature is unfortunately here as
excrescential as in the really Colonial
house with which we began. It has, to
be sure, a reason for being, in that it is
a porte-cochere, and its restriction has a
practical usefulness in reducing to the
minimum the darkening of the windows
which is the practical objection to the
application of the classic portico to a
modern dwelling. But upon the whole
it seems that the house would be better
if the porch were away, and there were
substituted for it a shelter which merely
enclosed the front door, in which case,
it is true, we should probably not be talk-
ing about the house at all. No. 31, on the
other hand, is a very favorable example.
By its treatment and its appropriateness
to its surroundings it tends to justify the
choice of its style. Flere the portico
really “belongs,” and is successfully in-
corporated into the rectangular mansion
the baldness of which it successfully re-
lieves, without overpowering it, while the
harmless necessary porte-cochére is kept
in its place, and duly subordinated. One
could not well find a better model for a
mansion of this size and kind than the
Colonial. Given a scale and surround-
ings which suggest and justify a “seat,”
and it is as much in place at the begin-
ning of the twentieth century as it was
at the beginning of the nineteenth, and
on the banks of the Ohio as on those ot
the Charles, the Hudson, the Potomac,
or the Ashley.

Montgomery Schuyler.

The Ecole Des Beaux Arts:

What Its

Architectural Teaching Means

The poor Ecole des Beaux Arts has
been the cause of a great deal of writing
in America in the past few years. Criti-
cisms, complaints, denunciations are
heard everywhere. If an architect, too
skillful for his competitors, wins a com-
petition, it is the fault of the Ecole. That
the Renaissance, happening in the fif-
teenth and sixteenth centuries, super-
seded Gothic, which was old and no
more in harmony with the new ideas of
men of this period, is the fault of
the Ecole. That the generation of ar-
tists of the three following centuries
were so much in error as to keep on in
this way, following out the spirit of the
Renaissance, is the fault of the Ecole.
What difference does it make if these
artists did create masterpieces? What dif-
ference does it make if they did have no
prejudices, and that, though they were
nearer the spirit of the thirteenth cen-
tury than we are, and still had the same
skilled workmen (which we have not),
they nevertheless broke away from the
old forms of their own free will. They
were wrong, every one of them—or so
it has been decided by the critics, who
without a doubt alone have a sane judg-
ment, the true artistic method, and, I
hope, the way of using both of them.

Meanwhile the Ecole which is the
pretext for all the noise, looks calmly
over the river that reflects the Louvre,
the water-jet in the courtyard of the
Murier springs serenely from its ivy-
covered basin, and Poussin and Puget
stand calmly oblivious on either side of
the entrance gates. Amid these almost
cloistral surroundings the students go to
spend a few years of a new life, laugh,
become enthusiastic and start in every
direction to try in many different coun-
tries to put into lasting form their aspi-
rations and personal qualities—high, it
may be, or vulgar, ingenious or com-
monplace.

The critics accuse; the Ecole does not
answer. Its function is to give to those

who ask for it the only thing a school
can give—a method of work. It makes
no etfort to bring people to its classes;
it prints no advertisements, no circulars
filled with promises. Its purpose is not
to defend nor to promulgate any special
theortes. Ihe fight to. teach 15: the
right of every one at the Ecole—pro-
vided, only, he can obtain a sufficient
number of followers. And he may teach
what he pleases. A newcomer may open
an atelier to teach Oceanian or Roman-
esque, or be a fanatic in Art Nouveau
or Tudor—the Ecole does not object.
His pupils have selected him, and are
following him because they want him,
and only so long as they want him. It
is the most liberal organization I know.
It was an American who said, some
years ago, to one of the professors of
the school: “What differentiates your
school from those I saw in Italy, in
England and in Austria, is its complete
liberalism, the way in which a pupil
here is treated as a man—as a man who
has the right to select his own master,
to choose his own artistic way.”

Fifty years ago, at the time of the
reaction in favor of the Middle Ages,
due mostly to the deep researches of
Lassus, Viollet le Duc and others, in-
fluential people tried to diminish this
liberty by creating a regular course
in esthetics, with examinations—that
is, to impose on all students a certain
appreciation of beauty. The professor
selected for this chair was Viollet le
Duc—whose ideas on modern architec-
ture, while excellent for a few, were
very bad for the majority. As the pu-
pils of the Beaux Arts are between
twenty and thirty years of age, they are
no longer schoolboys; and the most of
them have the necessary culture to ad-
mire what is worth admiring without
being told when to admire. There was
a sort of revolution, the Government
gave way, and only those who wanted to,
took the examination in esthetics. Since

308

then every course, apart from the scien-
tific and technical courses, is optional—
and the student does not have to sub-
scribe blindly to any formulae.

To discuss the methods of the Ecole
is, then, a task as endless as the one of
the Danaids. The professors are many,
and when one dies or retires his place is
taken by a younger man with very dif-
ferent ideas. The principles of the
Ecole are really those of contemporary
French architecture. The professors
are nothing more than architects follow-
ing honestly their profession, with vary-
ing success. The only point in common
between them is devotion to their art
and to their teaching—which is not for
them a profession.

As for the pupils, their object in life
is not, as my contemporary, Mr. Barney
believes,* to obtain the Prix de Rome.
It is to become more proficient in their
profession. But those who obtain the

Prix de Rome (who are said with some
disdain to have simply proved that they
are past masters in scholastic theories
and able to teach them to others) are

first of all architects, some of whom
have built in France buildings whose
perfection of study, care in construction
and perfect adaptation to modern needs
have made them the types of Nineteenth
Century Architecture.

We are too near to give recognition to
men like Labrouste, Duc, Coquart or
Vaudremer; or, rather, most writers on
art have not the necessary clearness of
mind to appreciate what makes an archi-
tectural work a masterpiece, but are
largely influenced by the opinions of
other people, which they simply adopt as
true. That is of small importance; papers
do not prevail against monuments, and
artistic criticism is the most ridiculous
thing to read fifty years afterward.

That there is a French influence in
modern American architecture is true
beyond a doubt. The influence does not
date back for the last decade, as Mr.
Barney has said, but has been apparent
for thirty years at least—to say nothing
Or the “first “influence, too. rapidly
checked, which produced the plan of the

*See Mr. Barney’s article in the November, 1907,
issue.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

city of Washington, and inspired some
southern buildings.

Mr. Barney seems to wonder that the
importation was made without a protest
from the general public. “If anyone had
attempted to import the railroad system
from France, or the banking system, the
thing would not have passed so easily.
Is it not, then, time to stop and con-
sider?’ he asks. Yes, but the importa-
tion of French architecture came about
because there was a need for it. There
would be no point in importing the
French railroad system, when the Amer-
ican system, which developed simulta-
neously with it, is perfectly adjusted to
American needs and ideas. But in ar-
chitecture there is something more in
France than in America. The simple
fact that it has been brought in without
a single protest from the general public,
as Mr. Barney recognizes, is proof
enough that the general public could not
get along without it.

At the same time the United States
was importing formal architecture from
France, they were borrowing domestic
architecture from England—which is a
new proof of what is somewhat compul-
sory, that in these importations a nation
goes in different ways to different coun-
tries to bring back what it wants.

It is remarkable to one who does not
satisfy himself with a superficial study
of art to see how a power greater than
the reason of the individual seems~ to
regulate these transactions—to see how
in the Sixteenth century France bor-
rowed from Italy what it needed to re-
juvenate its art—and that without abdi-
cating the smallest portion of her na-
tional originality; for I do not believe
that anyone conversant with these ques-
tions can find a similarity between the
French Renaissance and the Italian
other than in mere detail or ornamenta-
tion.

At the origin of everyart there is a for-
eign influence—no art is national from
its beginning. I would be ashamed to
write so evident a truth if I had had no
opportunity to read monthly dissertations
in which it seems to be ignored. The
Greek architecture was borrowed, the
Roman architecture, the Gothic—but that

Loeb BCOLE. DBS (bieaUx-AR dS,

takes nothing from their glory, which is
to have assimilated heterogeneous ele-
ments and to have wrought them into
a harmonious whole.

In my window this winter I had some
tulip bulbs from which I was expecting
an abundant bloom of flowers with the
first March sun. The green stems came
up, but when they reached their full de-
velopment, the buds did not open. Likea
poor gardener I had forgotten to let the
bulbs stay in the shade to delay their
opening and give the roots time to ac-
complish their work underground, in or-
der that the plant might later on have
the necessary strength to bloom. I ask my
contemporary not to do asI did. Remem-
ber that from having broken too soon
the artistic intercourse with Europe,
American architects killed Colonial arch-
itecture which was so full of promise.
They are at work again, accumulating
material from France, England and
Italy. The assimilation is going on, the
bloom cannot be far off—but you must
be patient. Fifty years for the forma-
tion of an art does not correspond to
five years in the life of a man; and he
does not show very strong personality
when he is but five years old.

And neither Mr. Barney nor I can
change these laws, which are deeper than
the human will. Nobody imposed French
architecture on the United States. It
was of their own free will that hun-
dreds of Americans went to Paris and
that thousands more took their inspira-
tion from the ideas they brought back.
Were all these men fools?

What were they looking for in France?
and what did they bring back? Docu-
ments* would have answered the purpose
—besides which the importation of
forms comes as largely from Italy and
England as from France. Then it must
have been something more. It was
composition and design. The methods
now in use all over the United States in
the universities, by means of which
those who have something to say are en-
abled to say it clearly, are those of
the Ecole. It is there that the real
French influence is found. The science

*In the architectural sense of anything from
which one can ‘“‘crib.’’

369

of design is not all that is requisite to
the professional man, but it is essential
to him in order to make himself clear.
The more important the subject the
more is felt the need of design. But
even in a cottage, where a little taste, a
little common sense, a little originality
and a sense of the picturesque are
enough to create a charming piece of
work, these same qualities, unless ac-
companied by the science of design, re-
sult only in disorder, lack of dignity and
in a building which is practically bad.

This quality of clearness—the science
of harmonious results necessary to de-
sign—where could it be better studied
than in France? Where could be found
a group of men of equal culture and
with the same willingness to give up
their time, where could be shown so
complete a set of representative buildings
asin Paris? There is no modern program
that has not there an excellent transla-
tion. Other cities have more beautiful
work, or a more complete ensemble of
monuments of a certain period, but
Paris can show types of all periods—
which includes the best existing group
of modern buildings, theatres, railroad
stations, markets, prisons, libraries and
museums.

The Ecole develops in an admirable
way the study of design, respect for the
program and the research of a special
character proper for each kind of build-
ine. It 1s asa. result of this’ that an
merely looking at a building designed
under such principles, one knows imme-
diately its purpose, simply because its
plan and elevation correspond to its
needs, and it is executed throughout
with a respect for artistic truth. The
comparison of architecture to-day in the
United States with that of twenty years
ago shows clearly to every fair-minded
man-the salutary results achieved by
French training for American students.

The greater part of my contempo-
rary’s paper was devoted to ridiculing
the method by which design is taught.
It will seem strange to the reader that
such childish methods as he describes
should result in the beautiful work they
have admired. Here is the reason for
this contradiction:

37°

He speaks of the danger to American
students of getting in Paris simply tor-
mulae devoid of sense, and a stock of
atelier slang instead of French methods
of thought. He adds, “Discredit has been
thrown on the Ecole des Beaux-Arts by
such men who, through ignorance, did
not catch the spirit of the wonderful
training.” It is too true. It is regretta-
ble that Mr. Barney, so far-seeing in
that, did not stop there, without going
on to give so striking a demonstration
that the spirit of the training had been
for him a dead letter; and that exter-
nal appearances alone and not purpose
and significance was all that he had
brought back from his foreign travel.

This is not a reproach. The duration
of his trip and the way he made it, at
an age, as well, when the habit of
thought is crystallized and not easily
modified, made it impossible for him to
see anything but superficial customs.
He had then to come back deceived,
and, not being the sort of man to be sat-
isfied with this empty food, he felt it his
duty to proclaim the failure of French
methods—when it was really the failure

of his own attempt to assimilate them.

Where he saw a “meaningless per-
formance” in the spinning of lines, cir-
cles and grey tones which were to be-
come a plan, he could not see that it was
the work of the brain directing it. He
was looking at the movement of the
fingers, believing in good faith that in
this were all the methods of design. Of
course, he asked the reason; and as it
is sometimes difficult to tell why we do
one thing more than another, on account
of the complication of things that deter-
mines our choice, he was answered with
one of those ready-made sentences, the
sort of professional slang that the stu-
dents of the Ecole, or some of them, like
to use, because they are short and
often avoid long explanations. These
Mr. Barney promoted to the rank of
canon, of magic formulae, permitting
anyone, professional or layman, to des-
sign, “while you wait,” anything from
a bishop’s residence to a railroad station
in a Chinese town.

My contemporary is witty enough not
to take offense at the joke played on him

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

by his companions in Paris, in saying
there is such a series of formulae. In
the school problems there is such a con-
stant change that it would soon outgrow
any set of formulae. One may notice
in the book of competitions for the Prix
de Rome, which dates as far back as
1797, a change every ten years corre-
sponding to the change in the art of the
period.

It is not the Ecole which creates the
architecture of Europe. It is the archi-
tects. The students are only pupils fol-
lowing the impulse given by the masters.
A great mistake in America has been to
take as types the work of students.
Whereas the French are more critical
and have realized so thoroughly the im-
maturity of such work that they apply
the term “school architecture’ to all
productions which have good qualities
but are undeveloped. It is fair to say
that no man produces an architectural
work that is representative of himself
before he is forty. The complexity of
architectural study is responsible for
this, and it is only when the different
parts of the profession have been mas-
tered that real work can be accom-
plished. ;

“ Diae- students in. the. school “are
taught to plan too much with their eyes.”
says Mr. Barney. Others are planning
too much with figures, and of the two
excesses, | prefer for youne men the
first. Practical requirements will soon
enough cut the wings of his dreams, but
something will remain. It is necessary
at one period of every man’s life that he
shall believe that the object of architec-
ture is to produce beautiful things.
Those who, during their youth, had only
in mind four-foot lightwells instead of
Boboli gardens will not in the end do
better architecture—even for lightwells.

There are other sweeping accusations
in Mr. Barney’s paper. One of these is
the elasticity of the School programs. I
have often seen in the United States
and elsewhere competition programs of
fifty or a hundred pages, which one had
to study for three weeks before starting
to design. Now, if one admits that a
student can learn how to design by do-
ing one problem a year, let him have

THE ECOLE DES BEAUX-ARTS. 371

such programs—with all survey inform-
ation, climatic changes, cost of building
and so on. If, on the other hand, one
believes it is necessary to have designed
much in order to design well, in the
same way that one must have painted a
great deal to be a painter and that three
studies from life, ever so careful and
complete, do not accomplish that, the
objection is of no value.

He objects more than once to the
phraseology used by the Patrons in the
ateliers, which 1 am afraid he did not
fully understand. For instance, a state-
ment he takes exception to I discover to
be no more nor less than that the situa-
tion of a building should have a large
influence on the way it is planned—a
principle. certainly true, 11 not = very
startling.

If these formulae or means of ex-
pression were not in sympathy with Mr.
Barney’s way of thinking and he was
going to Paris to study the methods of
the School, he should have looked for
these methods at the lectures or in the
book of the only man who has authority
to give them out in the name of the
School. Instead of noting without un-
derstanding them the sentences which
occur in the ateliers (that every intelli-
gent student knows to be only a sort of
cloak covering either results or experi-
ments) and processes in presentation of
plan, which have no importance to any-
one but the newcomer—why did he not
read Guadet’s book, “The Elements and
Theory of Architecture,’ which is the
only authorized document on the mod-
ern teaching in the Ecole in the last
fifty years. By simply reading the
chapter entitled “General Principles,’ he
would have seen that there is no need for
complicated words to express what we
have all been looking for in the Ecole,
and the truths we have taken for a basis.
It would have been fairer, in writing of
the Ecole, to have taken quotations from
such a book, instead of relying on per-
sonal impressions, which are subject to
the same suspicion as memoirs to the
historian. He would have found that
what we try to do in making a beautiful

plan is not to make a picture. “You
must understand by a beautiful plan,”
writes Guadet, ‘‘a plan which allows and
is apt to give beautiful things, beautiful
interiors and beautiful fagades. Yes,
there are beautiful plans—I find the ex-
pression perfectly legitimate—but in the
same way as there are beautiful books,
beautiful by what you can -read in
them.” This is quite different from what
Mr. Barney states to be the beautiful
plan in the Ecole. Whom are we to be-
lieve? The superficial observer, or the
man who has been teaching thirty years
in this school?

Further on (page 134) Guadet sums
up the principles of design as he taught
them, and as the others—Pascal, Dau-
met, Laloux taught them to us:

“I. You must be fdithful to your
program, be familiar with it; and also
see correctly what is the character to be
kept in the building.

“2. The ground, location or climate
can modify absolutely the expression of
a program.

“3. All architectural composition
must be constructible. Every inconstruc-
tible scheme is absurd. Every scheme
of construction more difficult or compli-
cated than necessary is mediocre or bad.

V4. Pruth is the. first nequirenent
of architecture. Every architectural
untruth is inexcusable. If in some
cases one of these untruths is over-
looked on account of the ingenuity and
ability shown in the building, the im-
pression given, nevertheless, is of an in-
ferior art.

“5. Effective strength is not suffi-
cient—it must also be apparent.

“6. Designs proceed by. necessary
sacrifices. A design must be good first
of all, but it must also be beautiful. You
must compose then with a view both to
the utility and beauty of the building.
And, as an element of beauty, you will
try to obtain character by variety.”

This is what I think to be the teaching
of the Ecole, and I believe that Ameri-
can architecture has made for progress
in following it.

Paul Cret.

THE “ARCHITECTURAL (RECORD:

IN MRS. GUY NORMAN’S SICILIAN GARDEN AT BEVERLY COVE, MASS.

Some Recent Warehouses

The warehouses which we have to
consider in the present article are free
from the unarchitectural treatment in-
volved in wholly concealing the steel
construction as of girders and posts. We
had occasion, in the article on this sub-
ject published in the May number for
1906, to dwell upon that misfortune—
that hindrance to every designer who
longs for realistic treatment of his work
—the fact “that we are not allowed to
show our iron constructural elements.”
And yet, if there is no case now before
us of complete concealment of the ma-
terial, there comes up continually the
question as to lintels built of small ma-
terial, and this not arranged as a flat
arch or in any other constructura! man-
ner. Six rows of bricks, with their cross
or vertical joints all in place, constituting
just so much solution of continuity, can
never be supposed a good lintel; they will
never make up a strong-looking bar to
carry and resist cross breakage.

In other respects the buildings before
us are logical enough. Where excep-
tions to this statement occur, it will be
our business to find them out.

The Chicago warehouse of Parke,
Davis & Co. is interesting to the student
of industrial art because of the simple
manner in which an architectural treat-
ment is obtained. It is to be asked just
here how far it is the duty of the de-
signer of such warehouses to seek for
architectural treatment at all. The build-
ing mentioned above is shown in Fig. 1.

In a paper of this series, published

January, 1905, now to be found on page.

67 of Vol. 17 of the Record, there occur
the following words in relation to yet
another Chicago factory: “There is cer-
tainly no affectation of architectural
ordonnance, with entablatures and all the
rest of it.”’ Evidently the writer of these
words was thinking of that kind of or-
donnance which is most in favor, the at-
tempted revival of neo-Roman design in
some of its forms. If all architectural
ordonnance were of that kind this Parke-
Davis warehouse would be excluded

from the category; but it is evident that
the writer of those lines was too hasty;
he ought to have remembered that there
is “an architectural ordonnance” which
is not pseudo-Roman, or neo-classic in
any of its forms.

Thus, in the instance before us, Fig.
I, the basement, although requiring win-
dows as broad as those of the upper
stories, is yet made to look massive and
like a basement wall by the simple pro-
cess of keeping down the height of the
windows so much that each pier of solid
masonry puts on a peculiar air of solid-
ity—an appearance which it would not
present if those windows were high, if
the piers were long. Then comes the
main wall of the building, including
four stories, and this is broken up into
four piers of much greater thickness
than the panels between window and
window in vertical series. Those piers
are so modified by offsets at the jamb
or reveal of each that they are made to
look massive by their very isolation.
The spectator is made to see at once that
a very considerable mass of brickwork
is carried up in unbroken form for the
whole height of this window-pierced
wall, staying the whole structure, carry-
ing the ends (one feels it) of girders
which support the floors, and accounting
sufficiently for the permanent solidity of
the front. The very fact that the wall
which forms a panel between the win-
dow below and the window above is
made thinner by a foot at least than
these piers goes to give solidity to the
piers by the simple means of contrast.
The piers are really only twelve inches
thicker than those panels, but that twelve
inches is made to look like something
very serious indeed by the setting out of
the reveals in such a fashion that we
have the appearance of three pilasters,
one set against the face of another, and
the consequent appearance of much firm-
ness in the union of those adjacent parts.

This has taken longer to explain than
it took the artist to conceive it. The
thought is not very remote nor very sur-

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

FIG. 1. PARKE, DAVIS & CO’S. WAREHOUSE.
Chicago, III. Hill & Woltersdorf, Architects.

|
|
|
|

SOME RECENT WAREHOUSES. 375

prising, but it is carried out here in an
adequate fashion; the needed appearance’
of weight and permanence in the wall
piers with many and very large win-
dows, and reduced thereby to.a series of

of yet one more full story. The decision
has been reached easily and naturally to
make of that additional piece of wall
an attic in the architectural sense, that
is, a wall built evidently upon the main

FIG. 2. WASHINGTON PARK WAREHOUSE.
Argyle E. Robinson, Architect.

Chicago, IIl.

relatively slender piers has been ob-
tained.

Upon this wall, fifty-five feet high or
thereabout, there has to be raised still
another wall sufficiently high to allow

wall of the building and designed on
somewhat different lines. Standing upon
that sixth floor we are so near the sky
and so much raised above the roofs of
neighboring buildings that the full al-

THE ARCHITECTURAL: RECORD:

FIG. 8. THE NEW SCRIBNER PUBLISHING HOUSE.
New York. Ernest Flagg, Architect.

SOME RECENT

lowance of window space may not be
essential. It has been thought that a
little more solid brickwork, a little less
unbroken glass, may have been appro-
priate. Advantage has been taken of
this fact to break up this new story, this
attic, into larger and smaller piers, al-
ternating with six windows of more or-
dinary width. The short piers, then,
may be treated as simple pillars carrying
a continuous epistyle. And the way in

WAREHOUSES. 377

and the use in this front of a metallic
lintel upon which bricks may be set with
their joints horizontal, as if in a contin-
al wall surface. [It 1sto be accepted,
we have to admit, that devices not allow-
ing of complete appreciation by a spec-
tator who stands in the street, have been
employed to make this front coherent.
Is that a legitimate proceeding? Are we
warranted—speaking as architects—in
leaving a piece of wall, made up of ten

FIG. 4. REAR UPPER PORTION OF THE NEW SCRIBNER PUBLISHING HOUSE.

New York.

which this pilastrata, as it may be called,
has been set upon the simpler wall below
is wholly successful in its simpler pro-
portions. This long and low detail of
the front is emphasized, then, by the low
gable of the roof, extremely well echoed
and enforced by the broken line below
its cornice, which sits so strongly upon
the double slope of the roof surfaces.
If, now, the constructional character
of the front be considered, the student
has to accept in advance the existence

Ernest Flagg, Architect.

or twelve horizontal courses of bricks,
as the only apparent means of spanning
a window twelve feet wide in the clear
between the uprights? If your eye is
caught by the joints of the brickwork
all is lost; the appearance of solidity is
gone. We cannot, in the beginning of
the twentieth century, accept as per-
manent work an apparent brick lintel
which does not acknowledge its method
of holding together. It may be that after
two or three decades have passed the

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

FIG. 5. THE CARTER & HOLMES WAREHOUSE.
Chicago, Ill. Nimmons & Fellows, Architects.

SOME RECENT

world will have learned to expect a rolled
iron lintel-beam, and to look with com-
placency upon a wall of brick and mor-
tar as if it were a homogeneous mass, in
which certain openings have been cut,
but until that time comes we shall ask

FIG. 6.
Chicago, Ill.

for the radiating joints of the brick arch
or the definite solid bearing of the stone
lintel. Grant the homogeneity of the
structure and here is an admirable front.

Another building in Chicago is frankly
utilitarian, a warehouse which is de-
voted entirely to fireproof storage, and

ye)

WAREHOUSES.

which has, therefore, few and small win-
dows and relatively vast spaces of brick
walling. In such an exterior as this the
architect is compelled to take his nearly
cubical mass, his parallelopipedon, and
apply ornament to it. It is quite imprac-

THE CARTER & HOLMES WAREHOUSE—DETAIL.

Nimmons & Fellows, Architects.

ticable to give it architectural treatment
in the ordinary sense of the word. F[en-
estration there cannot be, or at least
none which will account for the general
treatment of the exterior. To put six
windows and a wide doorway beneath
the vast superincumbent mass is a prob-

380

lem attractive enough in the soiution, and
one is left wishing that the chance had
been taken to insist upon the action of
the piers and flat arches and lintels be-
low in carrying the superincumbent
mass.

The Washington Park fireproof ware-
house is the design of Mr. Argyle E.
Robinson. He has treated the flat sur-

face nearly as a designer of rock-cut
tomb fronts would have proceeded in
Asia Minor about three hundred years

FIG. 7.
Milwaukee, Wis.

B,C... lf we turn over the folios of
Benndorf and Niemann, or Petersen and
Von Luschan, and consider the tombs in
Phrygia and Caria, we shall find broad
surfaces of rock which have been dressed
and hammered and smoothed to a suffi-
cient uniformity, and that they have been
cut with incised patterns or by incisions
which produced a pattern in relief. The
same designs and others like them are to
be found in Vols. III and IV of Perrot
and Chipiez, and again in the folio of

THE ARCHIZECTORAL “RECORD.

Texier, and again in the Journal of Hel-
Jenic Studies. So wide is the range of
possible adornment in architecture that
to come back in the twentieth century
to the patterns of the fourth century be-
fore our era is perfectly legitimate and
natural; and the fact that the methods
are different, that we build up with hard
blocks of baked clay while our prede-
cessors scooped and cut and chiselled out
of native rock, is really indifferent.
Common oblong bricks allow of just such

WELCH BROS.’ MOTOR CAR CO.

H. C. Hengels, Architect.

patterns as those frets and meanders,
zigzags and checkers which the early
Levantine rejoiced in.

We must approach a building like this
one shown in Fig. 2, without too strong
an architectural leaning. We must ac-
cept it as a huge square-edged block of’
solid material which the artist has been
obliged to treat with patterns in slight
relief—patterns which have no architec-
tural character in the ordinary sense.
One would be glad to see this motive of

SOME RECENT

design carried much further. It would
be well if some one having the ability
shown by the design before us were to
show more daring, and were to invest
the exterior of his building with patterns
more elaborate and not simpler than
those of the early men.

Our next example is of New York,
the fourteen-story building belonging to
Charles Scribner’s Sons, publishers and
booksellers, and housing their printing
and manufacturing plant. It is with

FIG. 8.

Milwaukee, Wis.

some pleasure that one looks at the rear
of the building, seen in Fig. 4. There
are the necessary conditions fairly met.
Story after story of open lofts filled with
daylight from windows made as large as
practicable, allowing of piers only just
sufficient to carry the wall to the top,
and to take the ends of necessary beams
and girders. We shall have to come to
that and approach that problem of how
to make the needed thing architectural
before the twentieth-century style will
have become a living entity. Many years

WAREHOUSES. 381

ago, when the American Institute of
Architects was a New York society,
small in membership, without affiliations
in other cities, I read a paper before it
when my turn had come to entertain the
members present at a meeting. I re-
member that Richard Morris Hunt was
in the chair, and that he made sounds
and gestures of evident approval when
I insisted strongly upon the crying need
there was of taking a common veranda,
an ordinary shed supported on square

WELCH BROS.’ MOTOR CO.—DETAIL.

H. C. Hengels, Architect.

posts, a common brick wall resting upon
a lintel course which, in its turn, was
carried by light iron columns, and mak-
ing a design of those things. We were
to approach design, I thought, not as a
study of Roman grandeur, with its es-
sential features taken away or carica-
tured, but from artistic work upon un-
pretending structures whose naked util-
ity might be raised into something finer
as opportunity might serve. It pleases
me, after so many years, to see the truth
of that scheme of architectural develop-

382

ment—its importance, its need, the ob-
vious common sense of it—recognized,
so far as in the twentieth century it is
accepted. We have not yet begun to
build buildings of high cost and great
pretension on those lines, but that will
come in its turn.

Meantime, if any one wishes to see
just what the speaker in 1865 or 1866
had in mind, and what the first and most

THE ARCHITECTURAL: RECORD.

over, the cornice beneath them has too
strong a resemblance to the ordinary ap-
pendage of thin galvanized iron punched
into shape. This, however, does not con-
cern us just now, for it is the fenestra-
tion only which has been suggested by
the natural, the inevitable arrangement
of the windows in the rear. The de-
signer has restorted to the obvious and
always happy device of enclosing his

FIG. 9. THE CUPPLES WAREHOUSE.

St. Louis, Mo.

obvious result of such designing is sure
to be, let him look at Fig. 3, in which
the Forty-third street front of Scribner’s
building is shown. It is unfortunate that
no better picture could be got. The rel-
atively narrow street, and the conditions
of the roofs on the opposite side of it,
were such as to prohibit a more success-
ful view. One cannot but deprecate the
scraps of ornamental frontal which seem
to furnish the attic at either end. More-

Eames & Young, Architects.

lantern-like wall of windows between
two more massive vertical members, up-
right towers, as it were, of walling car-
ried up with windows of only ordinary
size pierced in their front. Between
these relatively firm and massive towers
there comes the great screen of glass,
broken only by piers as slender as those
seen in Fig. 4. The small details are not
sufficiently made out in the photograph
to claim very close attention.

SOME ORECEN £.

The Carter & Holmes building, in
Chicago, is shown in Fig. 5, and the
treatment of the front reminds one im-
mediately of that other Chicago ware-

WAREHOUSES. 383

most appropriate to the purpose—no one
could hope to make a design of a roof
sloping in one direction only. Our habits
and the traditions of our youth are such

FIG. 10. THE CUPPLES WAREHOUSE.

St. Louis, Mo.

house which is shown in Fig. 1. It isa
statement of the facts about the roof—
that it is a double-pitched roof, of slight
slope, or else it is an assertion and a sug-
gestion of such a roof as being the one

Eames & Young, Architects.

that we must have a roof either flat, like
a terrace, or one with two slopes at least,
and the two-slope roof is associated at
once with all our best memories of fine
building in the past. The Carter &

384

Holmes building is the design of George
L, Harvey, of Chicago; it is very simple
in conception—making but little pretense
to architectural effect ; but the essentials,
the obvious necessities of the case are
well met; the corner towers, made up
of plain brick walls, pierced with simple
windows, having segmental heads, en-
close the broad, lantern-like facade which
the proper lighting of the lofts seems to
make necessary.

So far this building has seemed to the
inquirer a factory building of the plainest
kind, but there must be a word said of
the scraps of delicate sculpture which
adorn it. This feature also seems to
meet an ancient requirement, an eager
demand, of my own. I used to think that
sculpture should really be denied the
architects for a term of years, in order
that they might learn to long for it, and
that then, when its:use was restored to
them, it should be on condition of mak-
ing it as good—even as delicate—as the
means at hand made possible. Now, in

Fig. 6, it will be seen that the quasi-
heraldic sculpture of the square tablet,
repeated again and again above the cor-

bels and the cipher, are worked with
minute care and not without some ex-
pression of heraldic propriety. The ex-
act purpose of the massive corbels does
not appear. If they were lower in the
wall—twelve feet instead of twenty
above the sidewalk—they might be
thought to be a provision for an awning.
There is other and similarly successful
sculpture connected with the doorways,
above which are carved the firm name—
Carter & Holmes.

Figs. 7 and 8 illustrate partly a build-
ing in Milwaukee, Wis., the work of
i. ©. Hengels, of the same city. “Ihe
large detail, Fig. 8, explains the checker
of dark and light bricks with which the
wall is adorned in a rather effective way,
and shows also the very delicate batter
or inward slope to the sides of the door-
piece itself. This batter is emphasized
by the verticality of the window frame
immediately adjoining on each side, and
that contrast existing, it was a good
thought which kept the inward slope al-
most imperceptible and made the effect
reserved and severe. The whole detail

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

is of but little effect upon the general
design of the exterior, nor is there else-
where anything to be seen of similarly
delicate treatment. On the other hand,
the varied color of the bricks emphasizes
that peculiarity already discussed in con-
nection with the building shown in Fig.
I, according to which parallel rows of
twenty-four bricks and half bricks, al-
ternately, are assumed to be a sufficient
structure for a continued lintel; those
rows of bricks, with all their joints hori-
zontal, having no ostensible means of
support or of strengthening beyond the
mere tenacity of the mortar. It may be
repeated that this is a solecism which
must remain an insufferable violation of
good building until the time comes when
we accept the unseen cast-iron lintel or
rolled beam as a legitimate, because an
understood, means of building with
square-headed openings.

Apart from this, the building is inter-
esting; the proportions are pleasant, the
pilasters carrying the entablature, as it
may be called, with which the building
is finished at the top, are very effective;
the contrast of solids and openings is not
ill made up.

In St. Louis there are, within the busi-
ness quarter, a number of buildings
which seem to be known as the Cupples
Warehouses. Those of which we pre-
sent photographs are of the design of
Messrs. Eames & Young. Thus, in Fig.
g, the warehouse which fills the picture
is seen to be made up of three blocks of
buildings, standing side by side, with
narrow streets between them; and Fig.
10 shows another of the very similar
warehouses. In this last-named example,
the frank presentation of the fire-escape
reared against the front of the corner
tower (as we have already called that
vertical feature by means of which the
windowed wall is framed and held to-
gether) is well worthy of attention. It
is a dream which every realistic designer
must have enjoyed during recent years
—the dream of making the necessary
fire-escape an inherent part of the de-
sign. And yet one thinks of but one or
two instances in which a really architec-
tural treatment has been given to it.
This cannot be said to exist to the full

SOME RECENT,

in the case before us, because the iron
ladders and balconies might be removed
from the face to which they now cling
and might be put elsewhere about the
building without change of its character.

WAREHOUSES. 385
these fire-escapes from the third, the
fourth, the fifth or the sixth story. In
Fig. 9 that is seen to be possible; and,
moreover, the spiral form of the iron
ladder in this instance is assuredly less

PARKE, DAVIS & CO.’S WAREHOUSE—DETAIL OF FIG. 1.
Hill & Woltersdorf, Architects.

Chicago, Ill.

If not an afterthought, they are at least
appended because the law made it nec-
essary to put them somewhere. Those
who are interested in the problem of fire-
escapes may also try to solve the prob-
lem of how the frightened inmate takes

restless — more nearly architectural —
than the vexatious succession of parallel
ladders.

Our present purpose is, however, to
insist upon the generally pleasing dispo-
sition of the openings in Fig. 10; and

386

the effective result of it in a building
kept severely plain and not even resort-
ing to novel experiments in the way of
design. Nowhere is there a more sedate
piece of fenestration than in this severe

SCENE

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

pile of brickwork, with its effect of
mouldings got by mere breaks in square
alternations of bricklaying, and a pro-
portioning of openings and solids almost
classical in its restraint.

Russell Sturgis.

FORMAL GARDEN IN MASSACHUSETTS.

The New York City Hall

A Piece of Architectural History

Without any dispute, the New York
City Hall was at the time of its erection
the most successful piece of civic archi-
tecture in New York, or, for that mat-
ter, in the United States. It had only
one predecessor that was or is entitled
to much architectural consideration, and
that is the Boston State House, which
preceded it only by a decade, the “hub
of the solar system” having been com-
pleted in 1798, and the “Hall of the
City of New York,” as it was officially
known at its beginning, having been be-
gun in 1803. It was not the laurels of
Bulfinch, however, but of some Phila-
delphia builder, unknown to present
fame, that induced New York to spend
the municipal money so freely. The
report of the building committee of the
Board of Aldermen, in September, 1803,
advocating the use of marble for three
of the fronts, sets forth that, “seeing
that as a commercial city we claim a
superior standing, = .*: >. we -cer-
tainly ought, in this pleasing state of
things, to possess at least one public
building which shall vie with the many
now erected in Philadelphia and else-
where’—and marble the three fronts
accordingly were, whereas, Bulfinch and
Boston were restricted to brick and
sparing sandstone.

John McComb is the architect “of
record” of the City Hall; there is no
question about that. The cornerstone
still bears incisions to that effect. The
prize of $350, offered by the Aldermen,
was won by the design submitted in his
name, and his appointment as architect
followed. In these latter years maga-
zine articles have been written for the
purpose of celebrating him, and telling
all that was known about him, all based
upon the assumption that he was the
real, as well as the putative, author of
the building. And yet there was against
that assumption not only antecedent im-
probability but an obstinate tradition.
The improbability was that a New York
mechanic of the first decade of the nine-

teenth century should have been able
to produce a work which had so little
in common with the traditions of his
calling at that place and time. And in-
deed, it is to be noted that the architec-
tural traditions, such as they were, were
not, properly speaking, traditions of Mc-
Comb’s calling. They were traditions of
the carpenter’s craft, not of the mason’s.
And McComb was a mason and not a
carpenter.

The obstinate tradition is that the
author of the City Hall was a French-
man named Mangin.

Here are some gleanings from the
old city directories that seem pertinent.
Longworth’s Directory for 1803, the
year in which the City Hall was begun,
exhibits these entries:

McComb, jun., John, builder, Robinson.

Mangin, Joseph F., city surveyor, 301 Green-
wich.

These entries are repeated in 1804.
fa 1805 we find

McComb, jun., John, builder, upper end Wash-
ington,
while Mangin’s name does not appear.
In 1807 and 1808 we find

McComb, jun., John, builder, Bowery Hill,

while Mangin’s name is still absent.
Meanwhile, one Jones had started a new
“mercantile” directory, in opposition to
the established Longworth, and class1-
fied his entries by occupations. Jones
appears to have issued but one number
(1805-06) and in this, under the head-
ing of “Masons, Bricklayers, Plasterers
and Stone Cutters,’ we find

McComb, John,
above Spring.

In 1810, we find McComb for the first
time, with his “jun” dropped and blos-
somed out into an architect, viz.:

McComb, John, architect, Bowery Hill,

builder and mason, Bowery,

and Mangin reappears as under:
Mangin, Joseph, city surveyor, 24 Anthony.

The next year (1811), “Ehot &

388

Crissy” took their turn at sailing the
Longworth monopoly, and they give us

McComb, John, architect, bowery hill.

Mangin, Joseph, city surveyor, 60 warren.

The same entries, except that Mangin
gets his middle “F.,” appear in Long-
worth’s for that year, the year the City
Hall was occupied, though not alto-
gether completed, and the last year that
has any interest for us ‘in this connec-
tion.”

Note that the City Surveyor was
necessarily a technically educated man,
possibly the only one in the New York
of that day. To this day the common
British architect describes himself as
“architect and surveyor.” As a_tech-
nically educated man it is as conceivable
that Mangin could have designed such
a construction as the circular marble
staircase of the City Hall as it is incon-
ceivable that that structure could have
been devised by a “builder and mason”
with the ordinary equipment of his
craft. And, as a scientifically educated
Frenchman, Mangin may very well have
had knowledge of the prevailing French
architecture of .the period, which had
not much in common beyond its “‘clas-
sic” original with the British Georg.an,
with the precedents of which alone the
New York carpenter of that day, to say
nothing of the “builder and mason,”
may be presumed to have been familiar.
St. John’s Chapel in St. John’s Park is
another of the putative works of John
McComb. Whoever designed it, it is
im the. straitest sect. of the British
Georgian of its period, some years
pPesterior to that of the. City: Hall.) It
is on the face of it inconceivable that the
designer who did the one did the other,
and highly improbable that a “builder
and mason” did either. The architec-
ture strongly intimates that one was
done by an architecturally educated
Frenchman, and the other by a carpen-
ter of colonial training, who also, in
virtue of that training, was by no means
an architecturally uneducated man.

So the matter has stood for a good
many years, with nothing but presump-
tive evidence to go upon. Now I have
the satisfaction of producing what may
fairly be called positive evidence. Curi-

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

ously enough it is to John McComb that
I owe my opportunity. I am hoisting
him with his own petard. Just a few
weeks ago an Evening Post reporter
exhumed the diary which he kept, and
in itis this entry, under date of May 27,

(1803) :

This day the masons began to work regularly.
This day a communication was published in the
Evening Post, respecting the laying of the
corner stone.

And here is another entry under date
Ol jime. 2:

Another communication in the Evening Post
about the manner Mr. Mangin was treated in
not having his name published as the principal
architect.

Upon this hint, nothing was more ob-
vious than to go to the Astor Library and
look up the files of the Evening Post for
1803. It may be thought that that course
was indicated even without reference
to McComb’s “pointer.” But nobody
will think so who has had occasion to
look up the old files of New York news-
papers upon matters of local history. I
remember once getting the date of the
laying of the corner stone of the what is
now the Old Custom House and was
then the new Merchants’ Exchange (out
of Philip Hone’s diary), and then look-
ing up the newspapers of that date in
the hope of finding authentic evidence
of the name of the architect. Not one
of the able journals so much as men-
tioned the event! In fact, before James
Gordon Bennett, no New York news-
paper seems to have found it necessary
to-keep a; reporter at: all’ “Any neter-
ences to matters of local interest were
confined, as in this case, to “communi-
cations.” The diarist, it seems, did not
keep his diary up-to-date day by day,
but wrote it up afterwards at longer in-
tervals, and so confused his dates His

“May 27” should be June 2, on which
day, sure enough, the Evening Post
had, not a “communication,” but an edi-
torial paragraph, as follows:

NEW CITY HALL. It would be much to be
lamented that in the erection of this mag-
nificent edifice, anv differences among the mem-
bers of the Corporation, or any private par-
tialities or prejudices, should be permitted to
obtain which should have an unfortunate effect
upon the building itself. We hope we shall

not incur the imputation of impertinence to a
very great degree, if we venture to say, that in

THE NEW OVORK > CHY ELALE:

an edifice of this magnitude and importance, it
requires the constant superintendence of an
architect of science, from the laying of the
corner stone to the turning of the key.

“Innuendo,” as the lawyers say, that
the nominal architect, whose name the
corner stone bore, was not “an architect
of science,’ and was not to be trusted
with the “constant superintendence” of
the building. There is also an apparent
innuendo that “an architect of science”
had been concerned with the design,
and that it was a mistake to supp se
that his services could be dispensed with
during the execution. But this para-
graph, though it indicates that McComb
was not the designer, does not indicate
who was. That was reserved for June
4 (the “June 2” of the diary), when an
ostensible “communication” appeared
with an editorial introduction:

It is with extreme regret that we have to
record a transaction so illiberal as the one
which forms the subject of the following com-
munication. We should have given it a place
sooner, but we wished first to make some en-
quiries into the correctness of the facts, and
we should now have suppressed it, had we not
satisfactory reasons to believe it is founded in
too much truth.

For the Evening Post.

Mr. Editor:—As one of the spectators of the
parade of last Thursday, I had observed that
the French architect, Mr. Mangin, the real
author of the plan of the New City Hall, did
not appear, and that Mr. Macomb alone, was
carrying it in ceremony. The embarrassment in
his countenance, which indeed was not unbe-
coming, reminded me of that charming line of
Virgil—

Miratur novas frondes et non sua poma
All this, however. I explained in my own way.
The real author. said I, should be here; but he
may be sick, or absent, and I thought no more
of the matter. However, when afterwards, on
reading the inscription on the corner-stone, I
found that the author was not to be found
among the large list of persons concerned in the
planning and erection of the edifice, who are
thus to be handed down to posterity, I grew a
little nut of humour. Now, said I to myself, it
is strange that the name of him who invented
the plan should be the only one missing; surely
there must be a. mistake; the stone is large
enough, and such an injustice to a man of
talents can never have been designed. The
modesty of Mr. Macomb himself must, I think,
be put to a severe test thus to be held up as
the only projector of the edifice. Thus reason-
ing, I walked along reflecting how the omission
could be repaired. The stone was laid down.
There was no altering the inscription. I then
recoJlected the famous distich of Virgil, on an
occasion somewhat similar, when Bathyllus, a
very indifferent poet of that age, attributed to
himself certain verses of the Mantuan Bard. I
immediately went home and set to work and
on a strong sheet of brass I engraved the foh-
lowing lines, with some alterations, and con-

389

trived the next day to have it laid in the
foundation of the building, not far from the
corner-stone:
VII ID MAI-A. D. MDCCCIII
Justis Nepotibus

Hance aedem invenit Mangin, alter tulit honores.

Sic vos non vobis nidificatis aves :

Sic vos non vobis mellificatis apes

Sic vos non vobis vellera fertis oves

Sic vos non vobis fertis aratra boves.
And when the resistless hand of time shall
have laid low the immense fabric, our de-
scendants, in finding the stone, will also find
the brass, and thus render to the artist who
planned it, the justice he had a right to expect

from his contemporaries. An old _ Italian
proverb says
e meglio tardo che mai.
JUSTICE.

One notes with pain a slip in our
ancient friend’s scholarship. Virgii’s
lines are not a “distich,” but a quatrain.
Indeed, that recondite reference to the
“Sic vos non vobis” I was about myself
to make when I discovered with pleas-
ure that my esteemed predecessor in
vindication had anticipated me in it.
Whoever he was, he was a good fellow
and a hater of injustice.

Now it seems to me that the case is
complete, and that we may take it for
proven that John McComb was not the
designer of the City Hall, and that
Joseph F. Mangin was. The “sheet of
brass” of “Justice’s’ fancy ‘1s ‘con-
verted, for “posterity,” into the file of
the Evening Post’s “aere.-perennius.”
For, observe that McComb is not only
“charged with knowledge” that he was
strutting in borrowed plumage, but that
the knowledge is proven against him by
the evidence of his own diary. It was
said to his face that Mangin was the
architect he himself pretended to be.
He did nothing about it; he said noth-
ing. The infetetice is irresistible: “He
had nothing to say. Of course there
were many witnesses who could have
been summoned at that time to determine
the question if he had ventured to raise
it, and so he did not venture to raise it.
No wonder that he looked sheepish, as
“Justice” intimates that he did, walking
as ‘sole. “architect” in the. procession
at the laying of the corner stone, espe-
cially if Mangin happened to be among
the crowd that was looking on. The
situation was like that which Dickens
immortalized. when young Martin Chuz-
zlewit returned from America just in

390

time to find Seth Pecksniff on the plat-
form brandishing young Martin’s plans
for the grammar school:

“This is my building, my grammar school. I
invented it. I did it all. He has only put four
windows in, the villain, and spoiit it.” . . .

“Lord bless you, sir!’ cried Mark, ‘‘what’s
the use. Some architects are clever at making
foundations, and some architects are clever at
building on ’em when they’re made. But it’ll
all come right in the end, sir; it’ll all come
right!”’

“And in the meantime,’’ began Martin—

“In the meantime” the children of this
world are wiser in their generation than
the children of light. Poor Mangin has
waited a hundred and five years for this
vindication in the eyes of posterity
which “Justice” tried to secure to him in
1803, while McComb went on flourish-
ing “in his generation” by reason of his
astute annexation of poor Mangin’s pro-
fessional reputation. He had already
been the putative architect of “Govern-
ment House” (was this not that cupolaed
structure at “Whitehall,” or South
Ferry, which one need not be so very
old a New Yorker to remember before it
was demolished?) and a few years after
he was to become the putative architect

of St. John’s Church, possibly the real

architect. At any rate, whoever did it
was quite certainly not the architect of
the City Hall, but some designer nour-
ished on Sir William Chambers and “Tlie
British Vitruvius.” There were, neces-
sarily, a certain number of New Yorkers
who knew the facts about the City Hall.
But none of them, excepting poor Man-
gin, had any strong interest in un-
masking McComb. Very likely Mangin
was not a combative person. Quite
possibly McComb found some means of
quieting him. Anyhow, the story came
to be forgotten, or to survive only in
the nebulous shape of the obstinate tra-
dition to which I began by referring.
Nay, fourteen years after the laying of
the cornerstone and the exposure by
“Justice” in the Evening Yost, we
find, on the authority of Mr. Glenn
Brown’s history of the Capitol, that Mc-

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

Comb aspired, on the strength of Man-
gin’s work, to still greater heights. After
Latrobe had been forced out of the place
of architect of the Capitol, the President
(Monroe) said to Mr. Harrison Gray
Otis, of Boston, who visited him to urge
the claims of the Bostonian Bulfinch:
“Sir, we are looking to him, but Mr.
Latrobe is a great loss, and it will re-
quire two persons to supply his place,
and we think, also, of a Mr. Macomb
(architect of the City Hall, “New
York).

Doubtless McComb was a capable ad-
ministrator; very likely better than the
“architect of science” would have been.
In fact, his seizure of Mangin’s laurels
indicates him as a better “business man”
than that artist. But he was not the
architect of the New York City Hall.
Now that the case is made so clear, it
seems to behoove the City of New York
to “do something.” The approaching
centenary of the official occupation of
the City Hall seems to invite such a do-
ing. To efface the name of John Mc-
Comb, and substitute the name of Joseph
Mangin, from the inscription on the
cornerstone would be only justice. But
it would be harsh justice, now that the
one is as helpless as the other. And Mc-
Comb really deserves a place, though
not the place he occupies, in the history
of the building. Perhaps the claims of
abstract justice would be best practically
served by a compliance with the sugges-
tion of our concrete “Justice” of 1803.
Perhaps the best thing to do would be
to affix to the building, as part of the
exercises of the centenary, a bronze
tablet, the literal ‘sheet of brass” of our
ancient friend, leaving out the sarcastic
lines of the “Mantuan Bard,’ but un-
mistakably importing that Joseph F.
Mangin was the “architect,” in the sense
of being the designer of the City Hall,
with possibly the addition of the pro-
verb, either in the Italian of our ancient
and learned friend, or in the vernacular
version of “Better late than never.”

Montgomery Schuyler.

. Some Business Buildings in St. Louis

In the United States at the present
time undoubtedly the consummation
most to be desired in all varieties of
urban building is the establishment of
some appropriate convention. No gen-
eral improvement in design is possible as
long as every ambitious architect, just
insofar as he is energetic and enterpris-
ing, seeks chiefly to attain reputation by
his great originality. The conscious pur-
suit of architectural originality may add
to the American architectural stock some
few buildings of high individual interest
and excellence, but it is none the less
in its general results both wasteful and
sterile. The few good buildings are
paid for by a multitude of frenzied or
feeble examples of architectural design.
The more gifted architects must needs
lack sense of responsibility towards their
less-gifted brethren; and the latter are
deprived of the advantages of helpful
leadership. Neither the one nor the
other is in a position to take for granted
as much as he should; and to take
a great deal for granted is one indispen-
sable condition of economical and pro-
gressive human achievement.

Fortunately, American architects are
reaching a position which allows them
little by little to take more and better
things for granted. In almost every
class of urban building certain appro-
priate conventions are obtaining some
degree of authority. It is scarcely nec-
essary to say that these conventions are
not by any means finished examples of
architectural manners; but at least a
building, in order to claim attention, is
no longer obliged, figuratively speaking,
to slap a man in the face. And this
statement is perhaps more true of sky-
scrapers than it is of any other class of
urban building. For many years there
has not only been a distinguishable con-
vention which has partly determined the
design of these buildings, but this con-
vention has been gradually improved.
In its earliest phase it consisted in de-
signing tall buildings somewhat after the
analogy of the classic column—with a

substantial base, a long shaft and a deco-
rated capital; and this convention was an
improvement upon designs which de-
pended for their effects chiefly upon the
horizontal grouping of the stories. It
emphasized, rather than disguised, the
fact that a sky-scraper is substantially a
tower. On the other hand, the conven-
tion of the columnized sky-scraper also
had its disadvantages. It tempted archi-
tects to make the base of their tower
look strong by resting the superstructure
on heavy arches; and these arches not
only belied the structure of a_ sky-
scraper, but were frequently both incon-
venient in use and clumsy in effect.
Then the comparison of the topmost di-
vision to the capital of a column per-
suaded many an architect to waste large
sums of money on overloading these
crowning members with decorated de-
tail which, no matter how large it was
in scale, could never be effective from
the street. For this reason the analogy
of the column needed to be modified so
as to express more frankly what a sky-
scraper was, both in structure and func-
tion.

Such a modification has been taking
place of late years; and Messrs. D. H.
Burnham & Co., of Chicago, have had a
great deal to do with the process. The
triple division of the fagade has been
retained, but the whole front is treated
frankly as a screen, every story of which
is devoted to substantially similar pur-
poses. The lowest member is not em-
phasized or strengthening, except when
such emphasis is a natural expression of
the use to which these stories are put,
as, for instance, when a bank requires an
exceptionally high ceiling for its main
office. Neither is any attempt made to
render the topmost member interesting
by means of ineffectual ornament. Cer-
tain simple devices are sometimes used
in order to deepen the shadows on these
remote stories; but decorative detail is
reduced to a minimum. As the result of
such modifications the shaft of the col-
umn becomes much less sharply distin-

Eames & Young, Architects.

WRIGHT BUILDING.

St. Louis, Mo.

393

BUSINESS. BUILDINGS. IN”: ST. LOUIS:

SOME

Am 171 Me ITIP tae r fal

be; (a 1 fi FT fe Ge ere

Hames & Young, Architects.

LIGGETT BUILDING.

St. Louis, Mo.

THE ARCHITEC DORAL RECORD,

FRISCO BUILDING.
St. Louis, Eames & Young, Architects.

SOME BUSINESS BUILDINGS IN ST. LOUIS. 395

guished from its other members, and the
effect of the whole front takes on a
strong tendency to monotony. But mo-
notony of this kind does not necessarily
result in a dull and uninteresting facade.

The sky-scrapers reproduced herewith
and designed by Messrs. Eames &
Young, of St. Louis, bear a very inter-
esting relation to the convention the
modification of which we have been
briefly tracing. They are, all of them,
influenced by the convention; but they
are influenced in different ways and to
a different effect. They illustrate ad-
mirably the fact that an architect may
accept an appropriate convention and yet
find abundant room within its limits for
free movement. These three sky-scrap-
ers are conventionalized ; yet they are all
different, and their differences are worth
careful description and analysis.

The best point of departure for this
description will be the Liggett Building.
This sky-scraper, which is seventeen
stories high, is divided horizontally into
three parts by two plain courses of ma-
sonry; but the horizontal divisions count
for little in the total effect. In looking
at the facade one gets chiefly a sense of
a certain mass and height, pierced by a
certain number of monotonous openings ;
and neither the darker color of the low-
est division nor the simple ornamenta-
tion of crowning member serve or are
intended to serve as particularly em-
phatic marks of distinction. The integ-
rity of the mass of the building is pre-
served by this monotonous treatment,
which is precisely expressive of the in-
ternal arrangement of and its function
as a collection of offices, all of which are
substantially similar to one another. In
the design of this building, however, the
vertical dimension is emphasized just as
little as is the horizontal dimension.

One has only to place the Liggett next
to the Wright Building in order to ap-
preciate how much more interesting a
sky-scraper becomes because of the em-
phatic treatment of its vertical dimen-
sion. The Wright Building is a few
stories taller than the other, and its
frontage on both streets is somewhat
bigger. But the relation of the height
to the street frontages is about the same.

Moreover, the design of both of these
buildings is frankly monotonous and util-
itarian. The architects have not wasted
their client’s money on ornamentation,
which adds nothing at all to the earning
power and practical availability of the
structure. The crowning member of the
Wright Building is somewhat more elab-
orately treated than is the corresponding
member of the Liggett Building; but the
ornamentation has been discreetly ap-
plied, and is scarcely intended to be seen
irom. the street.. lt does not -serve, to
distinguish the two buildings in any rad-
ical way, and the point of most import-
ance is the better effect of the uniformly
square windows of the Wright Building.
In fact, improvements of treatment could
not be carried much further than in
the latter structure. The effect of the
Wright Building is, however, more im-
pressive and interesting, largely because,
in the long central division of the facade,
its vertical lines are continuous and its
horizontal lines broken, whereas in the
Liggett Building both have been treated
alike. The facade of the latter still looks
like a wall, pierced with openings,
whereas in the case of the latter the
facade looks, as it should, more like a
frame than a wall. The structure is not,
of course, expressed with entire frank-
ness, but it is disguised only to a slight
extent, and its more interesting effect
depends largely upon the fact that it
seems in a way to rejoice in its own
towering height.

The Wright Building may also be
very favorably compared with the
“Frisco” Building, designed by the same
architects. Here again the architects
have in general remained faithful to a
wholesome convention. There is a simi-
lar division of the facade into three hori-
zontal members. There is the same
frankly monotonous treatment of the
openings, and the same emphasis of the
vertical lines. The effect of the “Frisco”
Building is, however, not at all as good,
because certain not very successful at-
tempts have been made at composition
and ornament. The piers on the three
corners have been strengthened, which
in itself is a justifiable device to give the
two facades firmer lateral boundaries.

396

Less approval can, however, be bestowed
upon the treatment of the entrance. A
feature has been made of the chief means
of access to the building by arching the
opening, by strengthening the support-
ing piers as far up as the tenth story, and
by making a recess, with narrower win-
dows, of the space between these piers.
In appearance, however, the effect of
this treatment is to weaken both the
member, which the architects desired to
emphasize, and the whole fagade. Such
a method of emphasizing the entrances
is ineffectual, because the strengthened
division is lost in the general monotony
of the facade, while the facade itself
loses thereby its integrity.

In another respect, also, the “Frisco’
Building is less successful than the
Wright Building. The former is more
ornamented, but the ornament has been
less successfully used. - It can scarcely
be said that the “Frisco” Building is
over-ornamented, for the architects have
been in their most liberal moments very
discreet in its employment; but the ad-
ditional detail does not add to the in-
terest of the building. The terra-cotta
ornament with which the vertical piers
are crowned is merely an annoyance;
and the same is true of the more elabo-
rate treatment of the cornice and its ap-
parent supports. The pieces of terra
cotta placed immediately below each win-
dow opening are less objectionable, but
would have been better absent. The in-
stant one places the “Frisco” Building
next to the Wright Building one gets a
most lively impression of the latter’s su-
periority in appearance; and the superi-
ority is due mostly to its comparative
simplicity and its freedom from irrele-
vant composition and detail. In case the
owners of the “Frisco” Building espe-
cially demanded from their architects a
larger supply of ornamental detail, the
latter could have altered the general de-
sign of the building in order satisfactor-
ily to meet this demand. The propor-
tions of the “Frisco” Building are not
such as to demand conformity to the
convention which usually determines the
design of tall buildings. It attains only

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

the comparatively modest height of
twelve stories, and its longer front is
much longer than usual. The relation
between this frontage and the height is
such that the building might well have
looked better in case some balance: had
been preserved between: the horizontal
and vertical lines, and a design whose
horizontal dimensions had been empha-
sized would have been better adapted to
ornamental treatment.

Whatever criticisms, however, one may
make in detail, St. Louis is to be con-
gratulated on the acquisition of sky-
scrapers such as those illustrated here-
with. They constitute, together with
other bulidings designed by other archi-
tects, an indication that: St. TWouis: is
participating in the general improve-
ment in the design of business build-
ings which has been noticeable of late
years. One can scarcely say that the
period of rapid construction which has
just closed has been distinguished by as
many brilliant individual architectural
performances as the period which fin-
ished with the panic of 1893. But if
exceptional individual performances have

been less conspicuous the general aver-

age has been higher. There have been
a large proportion of buildings erected
whose design shows intelligence, experi-
ence and conscientious attention to de-
tail. American commercial architecture
has of late years been given a wholesome
direction. It has been determined by
currents of architectural ideas which are
both more general and more relevant
than those which formerly obtained; and
if our architecture is ever to obtain na-
tional characteristics this is the only road
whereby such a goal can be achieved.
Its national character must be slowly
and laboriously constructed in obedience
to certain comprehensive and strictly per-
tinent ideas; and this process must be
consciously continued until these ideas
obtain the force of an authoritative tra-
dition. Buildings such as those illus-
trated herewith have the great merit of
contributing to the formation of such a
tradition.
William Herbert.

An Architectural Sculptor

Lorenzo di Mariano, called Il Marrina
(Marina), was the last great master of
the Sienese school of sculpture. He
closes the hundred years’ period inau-
gurated by Jacobo della Quercia, one of
the conspicuous leaders of the Renais-
sance movement and the sculptor whose
works brought more renown to the
school of Siena than did those of any
other of its members. In 1266, when
Niccola Pisano came to Siena, at the
invitation of Fra Melano, the Cistercian,
to erect a new pulpit in the cathedral, he
not only founded the Sienese school of
sculpture, but he sowed the seed of that
classic revival which ultimately resulted
in the entire revolution of the plastic arts.
With Della Quercia, whose date is about
a century later (1374), the golden age
of the school was ushered in, and Il
Marrina, bor <a. century later’.still
(1476), marked the end of the school’s
activity.

The father of Marrina was a Sienese
goldsmith, and it is more than likely that
Lorenzo received his earliest artistic
training in his father’s shop. The gold-
smith’s craft serving him, as it did so
many of the sculptors and painters of
the Italian Renaissance, as a threshold
to the more serious and monumental arts.
In any case we find in all his work the
delight in the delicately decorated mould-
ing, the facility in arabesque and the
deep undercutting of reliefs; all remi-
niscent of the technique of the metal-
worker.

Lorenzo, at the age of fourteen, that
is, in 1490, entered the school of sculp-
ture of the Opera del Duomo, where he
studied under Giovanni di Stefano, who
was then head master there, and whose
best work, a statue of St. Ansano, is in
the small baptistery of the Cathedral of
Siena.

In 1506, sixteen years after his en-
trance into the Opera as a student, Mar-
rina, in his turn, attained to the position
of capo maestro, formerly held by his
teacher, and master. Besides this, he

had in the mean time gained the patron-
age of the Piccolomini family when
they were powerful politically and en-
thusiastic in erecting memorials to their
family, zealously beautifying the cities
with which their name was associated.

It was they who commissioned him,
in 1504, to decorate a chapel in the
church of San Francesco, connected with
the Franciscan Monastery, originally
located just outside the city limits,
though now, while beyond the wall, the
ground upon which it stands is included
within the city’s boundaries. It was in
honor of the first visit of Aeneas Sylvius
Piccolomini to Siena, after his elevation
to the Papacy as Pope Pius II., that this
was brought about. The Pope was, dur-
ing this visit, the guest of the Franciscan
monks at this monastery, and in order to
accommodate his numerous visitors who
thronged to San Francesco the gate of
the city leading to the monastery was
ordered to be kept open throughout the
night. To commemorate this event, the
monastery has from that time been in-
cluded within the city limits, and the
gate has remained open.

The decoration of this chapel in San
Francesco, which Marrina did for the
Piccolomini, included an altar and graf-
fiti for the pavement, but unfortunately
the whole chapel has been modernized
within the last few years through the
munificence of a lady of the Saracini
family, and the only work of Mariano’s
which remains is the pavement in which
are represented the cardinal virtues—
Justice, Temperance, Prudence and Fort-
itude ; but even these have suffered much
by restoration. The chapel is dedicated
to San Andrea, and belonged to the
nephews of Pope Pius II., the Todeschini
Piccolomini and the Piccolomini d’Ara-
gona.

The architectural note struck in
this first commission was to continue
throughout Marrina’s career. All of his
works which we know of, with the ex-
ception of some terra-cotta figures, are

THE: ARCHITECT URAL RECORD.

Preailee

|
i

RHREDOS IN THE FONTEGIUSTA AT SIENA, THE MASTERPIECE OF IL MARRINA.
(From Bode.)

AN ARCHITECTURAL: SCULPTOR. 399

DETAIL FROM THE REREDOS BY IL MARRINA IN THE FONTEGIUSTA—SIENA.

400

primarily decorative or ~ architectural,
though in one of these he has introduced
a pictorial relief in which he gives evi-
dence that his grasp of that branch of
his art was far in advance of that of his
contemporaries.

In 1508, if the archives are to be cred-
ited, Mariano had a commission from the
Piccolomini to carve the capitals for the
columns in the court of the palace,
known for many years as Palazzo Tode-
schini Piccolomini, but which later, when
it became the property of the govern-
ment, was renamed the Palazzo del Goy-
erno. At the present time it contains the
state archives of the city, one of the most
complete collections of the sort in Italy
and of invaluable assistance in compiling
the political and art history of Siena.

The design of the palace is attributed
to Pietro Paolo Porrina, of Casole, and
is similar in character to the early Re-
naissance palaces of Florence, particu-
larly that of the Rucellai, in which the
idea Ol the Wortress and. the, dwell-
ing are so successfully combined in
one building. The documents men-
tion, beside the capitals, other sculp-

tured ornament, which perhaps refers

tothe coats of arms above the en-
trance on the long facade and another
at the corner of the building. It may
even go so far as to include the cornice
at the top. All of this work is bold and
strong, and unlike any other perform-
ance of Marrina’s, for in every example
of his work, except in this, there is that
tendency toward delicacy and elaborate-
ness which, as has been stated above, in-
dicates his early training as a goldsmith.
That sort of treatment in this case, where
the architecture is strong and_ bold,
would, however, have been quite inap-
propriate, though an artist of less
breadth might not have realized it.

The type of the capitals is that modi-
fied Corinthian capital which was so
often used by the early Florentine archi-
tects. In this case the disk on the mid-
dle of each side of the abacus is re-
placed by the crescent of the Piccolomini
and the two rows of leaves, are sepa-
rated by a sort of subordinate astragal
mould, placed directly above the first
row of leaves.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

It was also from the Piccolomini fam-
ily that Marrina received the commission
for the entrance to the library of the
Cathedral of Siena, which Cardinal
Francesco Piccolomini, afterwards Pius
iIi., erected to the memory of his uncle,
Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini—Pope Pius
II. This building contains the great
missals used in the choir of the cathedral
outside. The lower part of the wall is
wainscoted, above which is a slanting
shelf; upon this the great tomes lie, not
crowded together as ordinary books are,
but lying on their sides in luxury, with
space between to be opened out and dis-
play themselves in all their grandeur.
Above the shelf the walls are decorated
by Pinturicchio with scenes from the life
of Aeneas Sylvius as scholar, cardinal
and Pope.

The entrance to this room, which is
the part of the work allotted to Marrina,
is on the north wall of the cathedral and
occupies almost the entire width of the
fifth bay, counting from the western
facade. The composition is divided into
two parts, one side containing the en-
trance doors, the other an altar over
which has been placed a bas-relief of
St. John the Evangelist, the authorship
of which is uncertain. The remainder
of the work, however, is by Mariano,
and shows that he was in no way inferior
in this decorative sculpture to the best
Florentine masters of this period.

The two bays of the composition are
treated with arches supported by pil-
asters decorated with symmetrical ara-
besques. These symmetrical arabesques,
which Mariano always used, are much
more formal in their treatment than those
employing the elaborate rinceau, in which
the figures of birds and animals are dis-
posed in all conceivable positions, such,
for example, as those which one finds in
the church of Santa Maria Miracoli, at
Venice.

The two entablatures—one above the
pilasters, ‘the other above the arches
crowning the composition and supported
on stunted pilasters—are both elaborately
ornamented, particularly the friezes,
which are decorated with griffins and
horses carrying genii, or putti, on
their backs. The lunettes contain the

AN ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTOR.

SPUREETNT DUOUHIUEE

DETAIL FROM THE REREDOS OF THE FONTEGIUSTA AT SIENA.

THE ARCHITECTURAL KECORD,

arms of Pius II., which were afterwards
adopted by Pius III. . These are sur-
rounded by wreaths of fruit and flowers,
suggestive of della Robbia, and sup-
ported: by two nude children. In one

curs in the capitals of the pilasters as in
the Palazzo del Governo.

Practically, every surface of the com-
position is decorated, and there is much
discretion and refinement shown in the

COLUMN CAPITAL FROM THE PALAZZO PICCOLOMINI, SIENA.

spandrel the shield is surmounted by the
cardinal’s hat, with its cords and tassels;
in the other by the papal crown and keys.

The frieze over the door is decorated
with crescents, the device of the Picco-
lomini, and this same emblem also oc-

treatment, not only in regard to scale,

but also in the height of the.relief. The
lunettes, being in the deepest shadow,
are treated in the boldest relief. The
architecture is well composed and pro-
portioned, and the employment of the

AN ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTOR.

panels of colored marbles around the
door opening, in order to increase its im-
portance, is ingenious and effective. The
bronze gates which close the library are
the work of Antonio Ormanni.

403

Imperiale, in which the Florentines were
defeated by the Sienese, allied with the
Neapolitans, under the leadership of Al-
fonso, Duke of Calabria. The date which
this work bears is 1517.

BRACKET FROM THE PALAZZO PICCOLOMINI, SIENA.

The masterpiece of Lorenzo di Mari-
ano is the reredos of the main altar in
the church of Santa Maria, in Portico,
at Siena, called Fontegiusta, which was
built in 1479 by Francesco Fideli and
Giacomo di Giovanni, of Como, as a
thank-offering for the victory of Poggio

The reredos consists of two free-
standing columns, raised on pedestals
and supporting an entadlature sur-
mounted by a pediment. Inside this
frame is an arch, the upper part of which
is occupied by a relief representing the
Resurrection; the sarcophagus, from

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THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

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406

which the figure of Christ rises, with the
two columns supporting it, forming a
frame which occupies the lower part of
the arch opening.

Here, as in the library entrance, the
architecture is elaborately decorated.
The caps of the columns are of the bell
type, in which putt, and dragons,
modeled in the full round, exhibiting the
greatest skill and mastery of the tech-
nique of the sculptor’s and modeler’s art,
are substituted for the scrolls and leaves
of the Corinthian capital.

The large frieze is carved with griffins
and winged cherub heads, connected by
delicate scroll: lines, symmetrically ar-
ranged about a central vase filled with
fruit, from which two serpents protrude
their heads.

The tympanum ffimed by the pedi-
ment contains the sacred monogram de-
signed and adopted by S. Bernardino,
the great Sienese preacher as his sym-
bol, supported by two flying figures.
All. of the small mouldings are elabo-
rately decorated, and the carving is exe-
cuted with the gréatest delicacy. This
is not the case, however, with the an-

themions which are placed at the apex
and on either side of the pediment. These
are so out of scale and keeping with the
rest of the “design. that one wonders
whether they might not have been a

later addition.” The pilasters back of the
columns and the panels on either side of
these are filled with arabesque, again
symmetrical, in which the puttt griffins
and serpents reappear.

The relief occupying the upper part
of the space framed by the arch consists
of four figures: Christ throwing off the
inertia of death, rising or rather gently
lifted from the tomb by three angels
—two kneeling, one on either side,
and each holding an arm, while the
third behind gently supports the re-
laxed body. The introduction of the
fourth figure into the semicircular
space usually filled by the more simple
arrangement of three, shows Marrina to
have been a master who did not fear to
set himself difficult tasks. This fourth
figure, however, in his hands proves an
advantage instead of a detriment; the
fines of its outspread wings bring the

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

whole composition together, and harmon-
ize agreeably with the lines of the arch
above.

The contrast between the heavy and
relaxed form of Christ and the delicate
but vigorous figures of the angels is
wonderfully done; one feels the weight
of the one and the activity and strength
of the other.

It is an interesting comment on what
perhaps might be called the artistic hu-
mility of the period that a man with so
much ability for figure sculpture should,
so far as we know, have devoted himself
mainly to decorative work. In our day
the decorative side is generally thought
to be beneath the consideration of the
sculptor and left to be carried out from
the drawings of the architect by the
modeler, generally a foreigner, whose
standing in the community and whose at-
titude toward his work is rather that of
the mechanic than of the artist. It reminds
one of a remark made bya foreign mu-
sician regarding our orchestras: “The
orchestras are composed of foreigners,”
he said; “the Americans are all concert
soloists.”

The spandrels contain draped figures,
carved in lower relief than those beneath
the arch.

There is a story regarding this master-
piece of Mariano which tells how the
fame of its beauty, having reached the
Pope, caused him so to desire to see it
that he ordered it taken down, packed
on mules’ backs and brought down to
Rome, where it was set up in order that
his wish might be gratified. There are
two versions of the tale, one in which
Julius II. is the Pope, the other in which
Leo X. figures as the pontiff. Doubtless
there is no truth in either version, yet
this does not in any way decrease the
value of the story, for, true or untrue, it
eloquently sets forth the great beauty of
the Fontegiusta which inspired it and
caused those who knew Mariano’s work
never to question its authenticity.

The Marsili reredos in the church of
S. Martino, at Siena, was done in 1522.
It resembles in composition the Fonte-
giusta, though it is far less elaborate.
The columns are replaced by pilasters
decorated with arabesques, and the space

AN ARCHITECTURAL SCULPTOR.

TERRA COTTA FIGURE, SANTA CATERINA, BY IL MARRINA, NOW IN THE CONTRADA
CHURCH OF THE DRAGON.

408

inside the arch is filled by a painting
instead of being occupied by a relief, as
is the case in the earlier work. The
same motives, however, occur in the dec-
oration, the sacred monogram of S. Ber-
nardino, the griffins and the syminetrical
arabesques. In one respect it differs
from the Fontegiusta, in which the ped-
estals under the columns are raised upon
a base the same height as the altar, while
in the Marsili reredos the pedestals rest
on the floor and the altar is between
them.

To this same period belongs a reredos
in S. Girolamo, which frames a Ma-
donna by Matteo da Siena.

The entrance..to: the..chapel «of San
Giovanni, in the cathedral, has been at-
tributed in part to Mariano, though
there is little reason for believing that
this is so. The carving lacks all the

snap and vigor of his work, and the orn-
ament has none of the delicacy and feel-
ing or proportion which one finds in the
entrance to the library, only a few feet
away. The entire work has never been
attributed to Mariano, for one of the
pedestals under the columns has always

been held to be a Roman altar and the
other Federighi’s copy of it. It is quite
possible that the entire work may be
his also.

Another disputed work of Marrina’s
is the marble seat on the left side of the
Loggia dei Nobili. The only reason for
this attribution is a document in the
archives which states that he received the
commission for the work. The bench,
though, which is now there was evidently
not done by Mariano, for there is not
the slightest evidence of his hand in the

Tipe, ARCHITECTORAL KECORD.

treatment of the carving with which it
is enriched.

There seems to be no work of Mar-
rina located outside of Siena, with the
exception of a Madonna, which Mintz
speaks of as being in the Louvre.

Mariano worked in terra-cotta as well
as in marble, and did in this medium for
the convent del Paradiso, now sup-
pressed—a Santa Caterina to be placed
above the door and an Annunciation, a
“nostra donnx” with an angel. The three-
quarter figure of Santa Caterina is now
in the Contrada Church of the Dragon,
and represents the saint in the Domin-
ican habit, bearing on her hands the stig-
mata.

This concludes the list of Marrina’s
works, and it comprises both the items
which are believed to be authentic and
those which are doubtful. It is hardly
likely that it is complete, for it seems
incredible that there are not many ex-
amples entirely lost to us.

Regarding his private life, there is lit-
tle information, except that he married,
in 1507, Elizabeth, daughter of Ser Ja-
cobo Bertini. His sons which she bore
him did not become sculptors, but seem
to have returned to the craft of their
grandfather, the goldsmith. In 1534 he
died.

Lorenzo di Mariano was the last great
Sienese master of sculpture. The history
of the school ends with him, but his
talent, at least, brought distinction and
glory to the last days of the school, which
had its first inspiration from Niccola the
Pisan, and which produced in its great-
est period the master Jacobo della
Quercia.

Alfred H. Gumaer.

NOTES & COMMENTS

On Fifth Avenue, in
New York, just north
of 52d Street, are lo-
cated side by side two

AN ARCHI-

TECTURAL
houses which fairly in-
COMPARISON vite comparison one
with another. The first
of these houses, situa-—

ted on the northwest corner of Fifth Avenue
and 52d Street, was designed about twenty-
five years ago for Mr. William K. Vanderbilt
by Mr. Richard Morris Hunt. The adjoining
house was built only two years ago for Mr.
Ww. K. Vanderbilt, Jr., from plans by Messrs.
McKim, Mead & White. They invite com—
parison with each other, because of the
changes in the temper of American archi-
tectural design, which have taken place in
the interval between the erection of these
houses, and which receive a neat illustration
in the character of the two dwellings.
The point of comparison does not, however,
consist in any consideration of the relative
merit of the two houses, considered apart
from their juxtaposition one with another.
It depends upon the fact that the later house
was designed in something the same style
as its earlier neighbor, precisely because
they were to be situated side by side; and
the point which they illustrate is the differ-
ent treatment which. this style received from
Mr. Hunt over almost a generation ago from
that which it has recently received at the
hands of Messrs. McKim Mead & White.
The early W. K. Vanderbilt house has al-
ways been popular with New Yorkers. One
frequently heard it asserted by people of
some architectural discrimination that they
preferred it to any residence in New York;
and most assuredly it has well deserved its
popularity. Not only was it the beginning
of better things in American residential de-
sign, but the beginning it made was an ex-
traordinarily good beginning. The twin
houses built for Mr. W. H. Vanderbilt on the
block to the south stand for the culmination
of the old New York brownstone residence.
The W. K. Vanderbilt house was one of the
first signs of emancipation from a discred-
ited convention; and its popularity was part-
ly owing to this fact. It was liked, how-

ever, very much more because in itself it de-
served to be liked. It possessed distinction,
elegance, dignity and even repose. It was
pleasant in the color and texture of its stone,
strong and free in treatment, discreet and
refined in its ornamentation. The possession
of these qualities was the more remarkable,
because the phase of French Renaissance
architecture, from which its style was de-
rived, has a tendency to enfeeblement from
excessive elaboration, and the facade of
the Vanderbilt house on 52d Street does not
wholly escape this fault. But the frontage
on Fifth Avenue possesses a combination of
refinement, simplicity and strength, which to
the present day has remained very unusual
in American domestic architecture.

Its combination of refinement, simplicity
and strength was all the more remarkable,
considering that its designer had not es-
caped an unnecessary archaism of treatment.
An excessive fidelity to certain accidental
features of the earlier buildings, from which
they borrowed their forms, was characteris-
tic of much of the work of this period; and
in many cases this literal reproduction of the
models resulted under the new conditions in
a comparatively feeble architectural effect.
But in the case of Mr. Vanderbilt’s house,
Mr. Hunt reproduced some of the best traits
of early French Renaissance design; and his
success is sO conspicuous that the archaism
of some of the details must be allowed to
pass. The little balcony at the level of the
second floor on the northeast corner of the
building is a mere affectation with as little
aesthetic value as it has practical use; and
the same statement is almost as true of the
tower, which is fitted into an angle of the
Fifth Avenue frontage. The tower may add
something to the picturesque effect of the
building; but the interest of the design does:
not consist in its picturesque quality. It
consists, as we have said, in its combination
of simplicity, strength and refinement; and
from this point of view, the tower diminishes:
rather than emphasizes the architectural in-
terest of the facade. In spite of these and
other archaic details there is nothing quaint
about the dominant impression produced by
the Fifth Avenue frontage. It is an example,

410

on the whole, of most excellent manners—of
dignity, self-possession and repose, and
manners of this kind are demanded by its
situation on fashionable Fifth Avenue.

The adjoining house to the north has, as
Wwe have said, been only recently completed
from plans by Messrs. McKim, Mead &
White; and the two buildings are, of course,
intended to harmonize. The material used in

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

the height of the junior house, it was neces—
sary to alter the proportions of the frontage.
The junior house is entered at the street
level, instead of by a low stoop, the height
of the first story has been made smaller;
and its cornice line higher than that of the
senior house. It should be added, how-
ever, that no great discrepancy is noticeable.
Inasmuch as one house had to be a story

THE W. K. VANDERBILT RESIDENCE.

52d St. and 5th Ave., New York.

both houses is as near as possible the same;
and both of them are examples of French
Renaissance. Nevertheless, in spite of these
similarities the two buildings produce an ex-
tremely different effect; a little of this dif-
ference of effect may be due to differences in
plan. The newer building contains five
stories, as compared to only four in its ear-
lier neighbor; and in order to get these five
Stories in, without any noticeable increase in

(Photo by J. H. Symmons.)

R. M. Hunt, Architect.

higher than the other, the architects have
been very successful in keeping the lines of
the junior house substantially harmonious
with those of its predecessor. The difference
in effect between the two houses is only to
a small extent due to variations in plan. Its
origin must be traced rather to a difference
in temper in handling the French Renais-—
sance style from which both were derived.
The junior building belongs to a later phase

NOTES AND

of French Renaissance architecture than its
neighbor. The archaistic towers, balconies
and niches have been abandoned. The or-
namentation has assumed later characteris-
tics; and one gets the sense which may be
illusory that there is more of it. The inter-
esting result is, however, that these changes
which are in certain respects an improve-—

COMMENTS. All

senior building the entrance, with its compli-
mentary treatment on the upper part of the
facade, has an emphasis corresponding to its
essential importance; and what is still more
effective the wall space is not to the same
extent broken up by openings. The. senior
building derives its strength most of all
from its ample stretches of unbroken mason-

¢
,
:
:
s
*

* 9 O Om

THE W. K. VANDERBILT, JR., RESIDENCE, SHOWING THE OLDER HOUSE ON THE LEFT.

52d Street and 5th Avenue, New York.

McKim, Mead & White, Architects.

(Photo by J. H. Symmons.)

ment, have not on the whole improved the
effect of the junior building. It has all the
refinement of its predecessor; but it is lack-
ing in strength. It looks weak beside Mr.
Hunt’s more archaic design; and it is not
difficult to trace the comparative strength of
the latter to an intelligible source. In the

ry, which the facade contains, and a better
illustration could not be desired of the ad-
vantage which an architect gains from not
being obliged to pierce his walls with too
many windows. While it was not the fault
of the architects that the walls of the junior
puilding had to be pierced by a comparatively

412

large number of openings, it is a pity that
they could not by some expedient have
avoided the weakness which by comparison,
diminishes the effect of the newer building.
With any other neighbor the junior Van-
derbilt. house would not have made an im-—
pression of this kind, but in order to hold its
Own against its older relative, every sacri-
fice should have been made to give it sim-
plicity and strength.

Now that Crosby Hall
is not only doomed to
demolition but in proc-
ess thereof, it may be
instructive to consider
the unavailing efforts
for its preservation.
There is no question of
the historical or architectural interest of
the building, or at least of that part of it
forty or fifty feet back from Bishopsgate
Street, known as the banqueting hall. The
front has been modernized and spoiled in the
modernization. But the banqueting hall is
a most interesting relic, and a good example
of English fifteenth century Gothic, 67 feet
long and 38 high, and much resembling one
of the smaller college halls at Oxford or
Cambridge. A great many American tour-—
ists know it. For it is not so many years
ago that it fell into the hands of an enter-
prising and enlightened publican who, having
subjected it to “restoration” in the most
approved manner of the Victorian Gothic,
opened it for “restauration.” It had its uses
for the business men of “the City;” and be-—
came a little Mecca for the American tour-
ist to resort to for a British luncheon. The
house of the richest London merchant of his
time, and that time long enough ago to en-
able it to have served as the residence of
the Duke of Gloucester, not yet Richard 1 bi be
and to have been celebrated by Shakespeare,
it was necessarily an object of interest to
the tourist, after the Tower and Westminster
Abbey, which were senior to it;--and “St:
Paul’s, which it antedated by two hundred
years. There are older churches and ‘‘col-
lege fanes’”’ and even country seats in Eng-
land, but as a “first-class city residence” of
its period Crosby Hall was unique.

Surely one would suppose that there would
have been enough of the historic spirit in
England to save it. There was an immense
gush of “appeals”? in the newspapers and
from societies and individuals which made
an impression partly comic and partly pa-—
thetic. The bank which had bought the
premises because it needed them in its busi-

LESSONS
FROM
CROSBY HALL

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

ness showed the most liberal desire to meet
the views of the aesthetes and the anti-
quarians, and gave extension after extension
of time to enable the deplorers of their
“vandalism” to save the old building by pro-
viding the bank with another site “equally
as good.” “Royalty” was interested. Con-
sequently snobbery was keenly interested.
But after the British public had been re~
peatedly and appealingly asked how much
it would be sorry to see the monument go,
it appeared that the British public would not
be sorry $300,000 worth, which would have

‘been an efficacious sorrow.

“They order these matters better in
France.” In France a building analogous
to Crosby Hall would long ago have been
put under public guardianship as a “monu—
ment historique.’”’ Nay, while the agitation
against the demolition of Crosby Hall was
going on in London, the progress of the
works for the preservation of the Tour St.
Jacques carried on under public auspices was
carefully noted in the press of Paris. We
even order these matters better in America.
Fraunce’s Tavern occupies a site more or
less analogous to that of Crosby Hall. It is
a century and a quarter only since the event
that gives it fame took place. Yet we have
managed to restore Fraunce’s Tavern. It is
quite safe to say that if we had a building
in lower New York comparatively as in-—
teresting as Crosby Hall in the City of Lon-
don, we should find means of keeping it and
that we should not allow the want of $3vu, -
000 to stand in the way of its preservation.
And yet, most curiously, some of the British
jeremiads over the demolition ascribe the
public indifference to the spread of ‘“‘utili-
tarianism” and ‘godlessness’”’ in public edu-
cation, America exemplifying the one and
France the other, when it is quite certain
that neither in America nor in France would
such a thing have been allowed to come
about.

Meanwhile, it is gratifying to learn that
the material of the historic house, though in
its present condition only junk, has been
carefully marked and stored so as to be
available for re-erection. A reverend Briton
makes an appeal to the public for pecuniary
aid to set it up again in Chelsea in conjunc—
tion with the “Hall of Residence” of a kind
of British University Settlement. But Amer-—
ica should not suffer this. Crosby Hall
should be re-erected on or near the Lake
Front in Chicago. Only think what a satis-
faction it would be for the hospitab!e Chi-
cagoan gently to lead to it the British tourist
declaiming against the “utilitarianism” of
Chicago.

NOTES AND COMMENTS.

Though Boston’s Met-
ropolitan Improvement

ANOTHER Commission is not to
BOSTON report until the end of
h , the fact that

VISION HDG, Yeats LES Ah

it is making studies

preparatory to a report

has done much—as
such conditions always do—to increase the
general interest in a physical remodeling of
the city and to invite the bringing forward
of various projects. Among the more notable
of such plans is one recently brought out by
Stephen Child, a landscape architect. Tak-—
ing the State House as a center, his plan
has to do with the area that would be swept
by a radius extending from the State House
to the further shore of the Charles River,
opposite Charlesbank, if this radius were
conceived as slowly turned to the east until
its further terminus touched City Hall
Square in Charlestown. The interest of his
suggestion lies largely in the facts that it
deals with a portion of the city which espe-
cially needs redeeming, that his plan sup-
plements and completes the magnificent de-
velopment now going forward above the new
dam at Craigie bridge, that it concerns itself
with a section where striking topographical
conditions make practicable very handsome
effects, and with a section in which property
values are, on the whole, relatively low.
From the State House, and hence from the
Boston Common connections, Mr. Child’s
scheme supposes a monumental tree-shaded
avenue, 200 feet wide, leading directly north-
ward, passing down the slope of Beacon
Hill and crossing the lower Charles River
basin by a substantial bridge. The beautiful
north facade and dome of the State House
would crown its upper end, circular plazas
would emphasize the river intersection, and
across the river would be, on a new site, the
North Station. A tunnel would connect this
with the South Station, while scenically there
would be offered ‘‘a fitting and dignified en-
trance to our city for the thousands of trav-—
elers and commuters entering the city from
the north and an opportunity of seeing and
appreciating our noble State House.” Be-
yond the station, the avenue would cross
some freight tracks by a viaduct and then
divide into two less pretentious avenues, one
going to Sullivan Square and the other to
Bunker Hill. New public buildings, as City
Hall and Court House, are ranged along the
river, on the Boston side, and there are
promenades on either bank, while trans-
verse or diagonal avenues that knit the
whole plat together promise a very sump-
tuous effect.

413
The presentation a

MAYOR few weeks ago of a
bronze medal to Mayor

McCLELLAN McClellan of New York,
ON by the American group

of the Société des Ar-
chitectes Diplomés par
le Gouvernement’ de
France, for his work in behalf of the beauti-
fying of the city, was a notable event. It
was threatened by two dangers, however. On
the one hand, there was a likelihood that it
would be too much overlooked or made light
of, in spite of the rather distinguished com-—
pany; on the other, that it would be taken
too seriously, for New York is not yet a
model of civic beauty. But Mayor McClellan
himself saved the day, accepting the medal
with a speech so graceful, so nicely balanced
between earnestness and lightness, so
charged with good sense pleasantly put, that
the scoffers were silent, and with all the din-
ners of New York this one was not over-
looked. In part, he said: ‘The mediaeval
ascetic and the seventeenth century puritan
tried to convince mankind that beauty and
righteousness were antipathetic. But his
wholesome natural common sense forbade
mankind to be convinced. We may and
doubtless do respect the excellent but un-—-
attractive woman while the beautiful saint
receives our warmest admiration. Where
Lucas Cranach and Wolgemuth may have
frightened an occasional backslider into
righteousness, Gentile Bellini and ‘Titian
called hundreds of sinners to repentance. As
with women and angels, and saints and pic-
tures, so with cities. Our fellow-citizen sits
him down to sleep the summer day upon a
bench in City Hall Park. If he awakes facing
the north you know that he will slouch
away a better man for having looked upon
that little gem of the Colonial—our City
Hall. But if he awakes facing the South,
and gazes upon the Post Office, can you
blame him if he goes away with homicide in
his heart? Venice lived a thousand years.
During her last two centuries of life she was
only kept alive by the love and devotion of
her children. Do you suppose that they
would have felt for their mother as they
did, had she been the architectural ancestress
of Hoboken or Jersey City? Something more
is needed to make the happy city than health
and wealth and wisdom. The citizen may
feel a just satisfaction in the thought that
in his city the death rate is low, the streets
clean, and the water pure. He may be snugly
complaisant in knowing that rents are high,
food dear, and bankers and brewers rich.
He may beat his breast with pride at the

CITY BEAUTY

414

thought of the wisdom of his town, that all
her people are clever, her schools excellent,
and her newspapers omniscient. The city
healthy, the city wealthy, and the city wise
may excite all these emotions, but it is the
city beautiful thai compels and retains the
love of her people.”’

The -mieht: 7 of othe
playground movement,
which has recently
grown so rapidly in the
United States, is well
brought out in an arti-
cle prepared for Chari-
ties and The Commons
by Henry S. Curtis, who is secretary of the
Playground Association of America. He
notes that in the month of November, which
must certainly have been an off month for
that sort of effort, a million dollars was
spent for playground sites. If only that av-
erage were maintained, it would make a
notable record, for, as Mr. Curtis says, “this
is a new bill for the United States.” But if
the November total was so high, the average
for the year is probably more than a million
a month. Says Mr. Curtis: “There was a
time, and not so long ago either, when only
a favored few could go to school. Now the

PLAYGROUND
PROGRESS

chance is open to all, and whether the child

wishes it or not, to school he goes. And now
we say that not only must every child go
to school, but every child must have a
chance to play as well. Yes, a chance to
play—not as we see play in the streets and
alleys, but in playgrounds fitted up with
proper apparatus and supervised by trained
instructors.” The Playground Association of
America is working to have every city in the
United States authorize the drawing of a
playground plan, under which no city child
shall be more than half a mile from a play-
ground. As the basis of this plan it is try-
ing to induce every city to make an inventory
of all possible sites—parks and other public
abandoned cemeteries, ‘marshes or
ponds that might be filled in, or vacant
spaces that might be purchased. In this
connection, it is interesting to note that
the playground committee of the New York
Municipal Art Society (Harold A. Caparn,
chairman) has issued a report which empha-
sizes among other things the need of devel-
oping playgrounds with artistic consideration.
“The buildings,’ it says, “should be of as
good design and material as possible, and
there should be at least a fringe around the
whole of trees, shrubs, and grass, which
should be kept in as good order as any of the
other parks. This committee, judging by the

grounds,

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

successful example of DeWitt Clinton Park,
which contains both playgrounds and chil-
dren’s gardens, is strongly in favor when-
ever possible of uniting playgrounds and
children’s gardens, thus bringing together
two of the most healthful branches of educa-
tion and recreation, which would be mutually
helpful. . . . Like all reformers, and like all
really practical people, we are pursuing
ideals. We think it would be a valuable re-
form if builders of tenement houses could be
compelled to make playgrounds on roofs.’
This is an idea for model tenements at least.

The Fairmount Park
Art Association of Phil-
adelphia has published
in two illustrated forms
—in a small pamphlet
containing the proceed-
ings of the thirty-sixth
annual meeting, and
separately in a large and handsome pamphlet
—the report of the local commission em-
ployed by the Association to study the en-
trance of the Philadelphia Parkway into
Fairmount Park, and an address delivered
by Ralph Adams Cram when the report
was submitted. The subject of the address
was the “Architectural Development of
Cities,’ and to the general purposes of re-
view it is rather better adapted than is the
report. The latter, in explaining a com-
promise plan that involves a slight variation
from that on the city map, has to do with
technical considerations that arose from
purély local conditions. These must be ex-
ceedingly interesting in Philadelphia, and are
full of suggestions if one knows the ground,
but are not easily summarized for the gen-
eral public. Mr. Cram’s address was intro-
ductory. He noted that our cities, and
some of those of Europe, ‘“‘were laid out and
built up at a period when the instinct for
beauty was dead, deader than it ever had
been before in the history of civilization.”’
But it was, he thought, “an eloquent com-—
mentary on the practical value of beauty that
its loss should have meant the building of
cities that are not only unbeautiful, but also
impractical.’ As in some of the foreign
cities, so ‘‘with us the tide has turned, and
the first evidence of the awakening of a civic
sense was shown by the development of the
park idea.’”’’ With all its merits, he notes
that this was ‘fa very narrow way of looking
at things, now fortunately being discarded
in favor of a broader and more inclusive
view of the necessity of cities and the duties
of citizens.’ Reviewing some of the work
done and planned, he says: “Let us note

R. A. CRAM
ON
CITY
BUILDING

AT TT TLL TO TT TTT

NOTES AND

that all these great American schemes for
municipal development, while possessing an
essentially aesthetic quality, are actually pri-
marily utilitarian.’ He strongly urges that
cities be given the right—as Philadelphia has
been—to take land on either side of an
improvement and to place restrictions on
whatever may be built there. “If you have
a street a mile long,’ he says, ‘and fifty,
eighty, or one hundred feet wide, and then
allow all kinds of snaggle-toothed buildings,
ranging in height from one to twenty sto-
ries, to impose their erratic skyline on your
great street, you have destroyed all the
glory thereof. ... The citizen, as an indi-
vidual, must be made to understand that,
when he is building on such a street, he is
not acting solely for himself, but rather as
a part of a thing that is far greater than he
is—of the community as a whole, the civi-
lized society of which he forms one small,
component part.”

The report on the im-
provement of the city of
Columbus, Ohio, which
was recently submitted
to the local Board of
Public Service by a
commission composed of
Austin W. Lord, of New
York, Chairman; Albert Kelsey, of Philadel-
phia; Charles N. Lowrie, of New York;
Charles Mulford Robinson, of Rochester, Sec-
retary, and H. A. MacNeil, of New York, has
been handsomely published, with many illus-
trations. The Commission thas been at work
for a year, and the report is the most elab-
orate that has been issued in several months.
Opening with a brief introductory chapter
on the interesting history of the movement
in Columbus which led to the appointment
of the Commission, the report proper is di-
vided into three discussions. The first deals
with general suggestions, for the improve-
ment of the city as a whole—with the street
plan, with the problems of transportation,
with street utilities, with the planning of the
suburbs, etc. The second deals with the
park system, plans for which are worked out
most completely, both as to the various units
and as to their connection. As Columbus now
has very little in the way of parks, and not
only needs much, butis conscious of the need.
it was possible for the Commission to make a
park plan that should be a model for an in-—
dustrial community. It considers the social
requirements of every section of the popula-—
tion as well as the aesthetic effects. If this
plan should be carried out in its entirety,
Columbus would present a very interesting

PLANS FOR
COLUMBUS,
OHIO

COMMENTS. 415

and instructive example of what parks can
be in a scientifically developed city. The
argument with which the park plan is pre-
sented is full of suggestion. The third sec-
tion is devoted to the State and Civic Centers,
which it is proposed to develop around the
Capitol. This is a very elaborate project,
but not too elaborate for the great State of
Ohio to authorize as a setting for its Capitol.
The plan contemplates a long mall, crowned
at one end by the State House, crossing the
straightened and nobly embanked river by
monumental bridges, and terminating in a
great armory beyond. An interesting feature
is the use made of tall commercial buildings.
The present Capitol park abuts on High
Street, the principal business street of Co-
lumbus. The mall has to begin at High
Street, but on it—opposite a corner of the
Capitol park—is a new skyscraper. The
Commission frankly accepts this, proposes
the private erection of a similar one on the
opposite corner, and in its scheme treats
these as pylons to mark the beginning of the
mall. Back of the State House, it arranges
a civic center, with City Hall, Post Office,
etc. The illustrations in the report include
pictures of pertinent foreign work, as well as
diagrams, perspectives, and photographs to
illustrate the Columbus plans. The photo-
graphs of natural scenery around Columbus,
showing the selected park sites, reveal a
quiet and romantic beauty the existence of
which most visitors to the city, or travelers
through mid-Ohio, would not have suspected.
Three streams come into Columbus, and the
Commission makes full use of these water-—
courses in developing parks and parkways.
The report has been well received, and while
it is not expected that a great deal will be
done at once, it furnishes a plan for the city
to work toward through a long series of
years. If in another generation or so the
State of Ohio has not a convenient, beauti-
ful, well planned and imposing capital city,
the reason will not be that the people have
not been told how to eet it.

There has been pub-
lished the drawing
showing a bird’s eye
view of the permanent
grounds of the New
York State Fair at
Syracuse, as they will
look if the plans of
Green and Wicks, architects, of Buffalo, are
adopted. These are the premiated designs,
and are interesting as raising a State fair to
quite the spectacular ambitiousness of an
exposition—an ambitiousness that really is

STATE FAIR
PLANS

416

not unreasonable, once the location be per-
manently fixed. In fact, that condition
granted, the construction and landscape work
can be made of substantial character; and
the State fair might by degrees go even be-
yond the temporary exposition as regards
impressiveness. The plans of Green and
Wicks promise three great pictures: The
Empire State Court, 500 by 700 feet in size
and bounded on one side by the main en-
trance to the grounds; the Horticultural
Court, which is separated from it by a peri-
style 500 feet long, opposite the main en-
trances to the Empire State Court; and a
parallelogram bordered by various harmo-
nious structures that is suggestive of the
Mall under construction at Cleveland. The
Horticultural Court, it should be explained,
while cut off from the vast Empire State
Court by a straight peristyle, has the Arts,
Horticultural and Women’s buildings grouped
around it in an exact semi-circle; so that
the three courts are entirely distinct in the
pictures they will offer. The race track is
put where it does not force itself upon any
of these compositions. The detail that would
seem most to invite criticism is the size of
the Empire State Court. Entering the fair
grounds and beholding at once this great
space, the visitor might feel pretty lonesome
—hbut in one day last year there were 60,000
admissions, and if the fair is developed on
the grandiose scale these plans propose there
can be no question that the attendance would
mount up prodigiously. In this connection it
is interesting to think what would be the
educational and artistic influence of har-
moniously and beautifully developed State
fairs. Would they not do for the smaller
communities in each State something like
what the Chicago fair did for the nation—
with this difference, that their lesson would
be reiterated year after year? If anything
of that sort were the effect, what might we
not look for in the better planning of towns
and locating of pubile buildings? The words
of Governor Hughes to the Legislature, in
reference to the plans, are worth repeating,
for their good sense, broad outlook and
aesthetic appreciation. He said: ‘I recom-
mended last year that plans should be made
for the comprehensive and adequate develop-
ment of the State Fair in a manner which
would avoid haphazard or ill considered im-
provements merely designed to meet tem-—
porary exigencies. The development, of
course, must be gradual, and without extrav-—
agance. But by making substantial progress
each year, so that what is done will fit into
a suitable, general plan, economy will be
promoted and the result will be worthy of
the State.”

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD:

The February maga-
zine number of ‘‘Chari-
ties and The Com-
mons’ was made a big
special number de-
voted io city pianning.
It was put in editorial
charge of a man who
is active in this work, and was profusely
illustrated. It was the first copy of a maga-—
zine in the United States to be especially de-
voted to this subject, though in Germany
there is a monthly which deals with nothing
else. The editor, to avoid any special plead-
ing, divided his articles into two main
groups: One, on the theory of city planning,
the articles in that group describing the
benefits of a good city plan from various
points of view; the other, on the practice of
city planning, the articles therein describing
work undertaken during the preceding
twelve months—a very remarkable record.
Not one of the articles is by a man who
himself has professionally done any city
planning, except the foreword by the editor,
which is brief and strictly impersonal. It
will be seen that if the articles thus lost
something in experienced statement, the
number as a whole gained strength by the
absolute disinterestedness of the testimony.
And perhaps there was no loss at all, for
each article was authoritative, coming in
the first group from an expert in the par—
ticular aspect of municipal development
which was taken as his special point of view,
and in the second group from a prominent
resident of the city described. Thus, under
the head of the theory of city planning, the
relation of the plan to the problems of trans-
portation was described by George E. Hooker,
secretary of the City Club of Chicago and
formerly secretary to the special street rail-
way commission of the Chicago City Coun-
cil; that on the street as a basic factor was
by Andrew Wright Crawford, of Philadel—
phia, and that on the civic centre by Syl-
vester Baxter, of Boston—neither of whom
needs introduction here. The neighborhood
centre as a feature was described by Dwight
F. Davis, member of the public library and
public bath commissions of St. Louis. The
connection of the parks and the city plan
was described by Henry A. Barker, of Provi-
dence, who is the father of the Metropolitan
Park movement there. “The Workingman
and the City Plan’’ was the subject of Ben-
jamin C. Marsh, executive secretary of the
Committee on Congestion of Population in
New York. - These are not all the articles,
but they are enough to show the compre-
hensiveness of the review and the wide-
spread source and authority of the testimony.

DISCUSSION
OF CITY
PLANNING

NOTES AND

The reports of the
Municipal Art Commis-

NEW YORK sion of New York
ART are always interesting,
but they are so late in

COMMISSION

coming out that their
significance is in the
tendencies which they
reveal rather than in their antiquated record
of facts. The current report, for example,
came from the printer in January, 1908. It
is dated October 9, 1907, and it is ‘‘for the
year ending December 31, 1906.” But if one
is willing to overlook the element of time,
which in swift New York one always hesi-
tates to do, the report, with its many foreign
illustrations and several foreign plans, is in-
teresting enough. At the very outset it is
curiously notable that popular usage, so
prone to abbreviate official titles, has in this
case gone for definiteness to the opposite
extreme. The body reporting is simply the
“Art Commission,’ not, as one has to call
it, the Municipal Art Commission of New
York. It is stated that the number of pro-
jects submitted to the Commission in 1906
was 132, involving approximately $27,000,Uv0
of expenditure. To make sure that so. vast
an amount of money for public work will be
expended with artistic consideration year in
and year out, instead of carelessly, is full
justification for the Commission’s existence.
In the summary of the years from 1898 to
1906, inclusive, it is interesting to observe
the rapid growth of the number of projects
submitted, the last year having much the
greatest number. And the growth is marked,
it is further encouraging to note, in the
items: “On request of the Mayor or Board
of Aldermen’’—showing an increasing defer-
ence for the Commission’s opinion; and
in “approved’’—suggesting an artistic im-
provement in the projects submitted. The
first year as many were disapproved as were
approved; the last year the disapprovals
were slightly less than a third as many as
the approved.

The artistic decora-
A tion of plain old Ply-
mouth- | Chu reh) an

DEPARTURE Brooklyn was a haz-
IN CHURCH ardous, not to say in-
DECORATION congruous, experiment.

That it has been ac-

complished success-
fully, without the least incongruity, and
with a satisfactorily artistic result speaks
well for the good taste and talent of Fred-
erick §. Lamb, to whom it was entrusted;
and for the board of trustees and individual

COMMENTS. 417

donors, who accepted his dicta without at-
tempting interference. On the outside a
porch in harmony with the severe simplicity
of this Puritan meeting-house has taken the
place of the old storm house; and within a
series of memorial windows, portraying
scenes in the history of the Puritan church
or representing pictorially certain fundamen-
tal Puritan principles, give to the audi-
torium a beauty and even a Puritan atmos-
phere which with all its former plainness
and homeliness it did not have. Of the
windows, “The Outlook” says editorially:
“In two respects they are, so far as we
know, unique. One harmonious and com-
prehensive plan has been adopted, and
while the donor of any window is at liberty
to select from this plan the design which
pleases him, no donor is permitted to form
his own design. As a consequence, the whole
church will be pictorially a unit. And all
the pictures are human, not ecclesiastical;
and modern, not ancient; no one of them
goes back of the early English Puritan age,
the age of Cromwell, Hampden, and Mil-
ton.” In a recent address before the men
of the church, Mr. Lamb is quoted as say-
ing that underlying his scheme was an ac-
ceptance of the “universal recognition that
the modern church was not meeting modern
needs.” ‘Tio meet them, he thought, it must
become modern in its architecture and its
symbolism. Ecclesiastical symbolism meant
very little to the man of to-day. To abolish
all symbolism and give plain walls and plain
windows was little better, for mere negation
attracts no one. We need, he said, a sym-
bolism which appeals to modern life and
brings a message to which the modern man
will listen. The speaker instanced the win-
dow representing John Hampden appealing
for the Bill of Rights, and that representing
John Milton pleading for the liberty of the
press, the one bringing the message of po-
litical liberty, the other of liberty of the
press.

While it is generally
supposed that the Amer-

MODERN
ican people are perhaps
BATHS the farthest advanced
AND BATH in the sanitation of the
HOUSES* home, we are compelled

to alter this view some-
what when we read the
facts of modern sanitation applied to the
Bath and the Bath House as set forth by
Mr. William Paul Gerhard in an extremely

*Modern Baths and Bath Houses, by Wm. Paul
Gerhard, C. E., New York: Jobn Wiley & Sons.
London: Chapman & Hall, Limited. 1908.

418

interesting volume under the above caption.
It appears that a report made to the Ameri-
can Medical Association in 1887 showed that
eighteen large cities in the United States
contained no free public baths whatever and
only about one-quarter of the residences were
Supplied with bathtubs. “The need of cheap
and plain public baths for the masses and for
the working people of both sexes is,” says
the author, “therefore, apparently just as
urgent here as it is in Europe.” In fact,
the need would seem to be even greater in
our large cities than in some equally popu-
lous centers of Europe. The numerous large
and splendid Public Bath Houses which have
recently been erected in many of the large
cities of Germany and England prove our own
backwardness in this respect. The Public
Baths at Hannover in the northern part of the
Empire and one of similar extentand appoint-
ment at Mtinchen in Southern Germany rival
some of the Baths of the Romans, in their
careful planning and their sumptuousness.
“In 1904 only thirty-four: cities in the
United States had more or less adequate pro-
vision for bathing for the people,” says the
author. “It is very seldom, indeed, that
tenement houses have any baths; even the
so-called ‘model’ tenement houses do not pro-
vide bathing facilities.” We have, it is true,
the floating river and sea baths, but these
not only fail to provide for proper cleansing,
but are available for only a part of the year
and are often expensive to reach on account
of their distance from the homes of those
who would use them. This form of bath is
clearly inadequate for the needs of the great
public, which requires more of the type of
People’s Baths of which some admirable ex-
amples have lately been built in New York,
Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore, to men-
tion only a few instances. In the equipment
of these People’s Baths, Mr. Gerhard makes
a strong plea for the use of the shower or
rain bath as being the most suitable fixture
hygienically for public bathing, providing the
proper conditions for cleansing the body with
the least consumption of water and as afford—
ing much the greatest capacity of use. It
has been demonstrated that one shower or
rain bath will do in a given time the work of
four bathtubs with less danger of getting
out of order. He also wisely suggests that
tenement houses, especially those in New
York, might be provided to advantage with
such rain baths in some suitable place in the

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

cellar and placed in charge of the janitor.
This suggestion seems to us to contain a
possible solution of the problem to better the
physical, moral and intellectual condition of
the “great unwashed” and is worthy of seri-
ous consideration in the revision of the New
York building code which is now under way.

Mr. Gerhard’s book is profusely illustrated
with many interesting plans, containing
much valuable information for architects,
and by numerous photographs which, in con-
nection with the descriptive text, should ap-
peal to the non-professional reader. Espe-
cially interesting reading is the appendix of
the book, which is a series of extracts from
the writings of travelers, explorers and sci-
entists on the art of bathing, in various
European countries, in many cases translated
into English by the author, who also gives
much valuable information gathered from his
own experience as a sanitary engineer. He
gives interesting details of sanitary devices
and a complete specification for a municipal
bath house. An extended bibliography adds
to the value of the work.

Part II. of the 1907
issue of this interesting
architectural and art
catalogue has just come
to hand. In the variety
of the matter presented
it will have an unusual
interest for American
architects and sculptors alike. It is a selec—
tion from the English, French and Scotch ar-
chitectural societies, which do not follow the
American custom of issuing individual cata-
logues. To our professional readers this fact
is no doubt familiar and has been for many
years; but there is in this publication much
that will also interest the art-loving public
Who like to keep in touch with recent and
prospective foreign building operations and
works of sculpture. Of the latter there is
reproduced a very representative collection of
contemporary English, French and German
figure and monumental work. The suburban
houses illustrated should also interest Ameri-
cans as they suggest an interesting com-
parison between the suburban house work of
Our own architects and contemporary work
in England and on the Continent.

ACADEMY
ARCHITECTURE*

*Edited by Alex. Koch, architect, London.

U. So:
M. A. Vinson, Cleveland, Ohio,

TT TE I LI IT TS

VoL. <XIIL.. No: 6; JUNE, 1908. WHOLE No. I17.

eg
NS INSTA SNOT Di Py WAYS

SS ee ae ee EEE BE eae EO ata WAY ini

QUR SUBURBAN ARCHITECTURE...................0.0..0.0..

THE MODEST COUNTRY HOME......... ...................
Illustrated.

TREATING THE GROUNDS ABOUT THE SUBURBAN HOUSE
Illustrated. Harold A. Caparn. ;

DECORATING AND FURNISHING THE INEXPENSIVE COUNTRY
HOMES eros ee Slersilecoleis eins arch See eRe Sara eee SE ee 445
Illustrated.

THE KITCHEN AND ITS DEPENDENT SERVICES—I
Illustrated. Katharine C. Budd.

RECENT SUBURBAN HOUSES.........................0000..
Illustrated by plans, exterior and interior views.

NOTES: AND: COMMENTS scceccs ea SS
Automobiles and Suburban House Sites—An English
Paper On Town Planning—Competition For Cottage
Houses—Plans For Roanoke—Wanted: Recutting,
Not Patches—Advertisement Protests—A Valuable
Publication—National Architecture and Building
Exposition.

PUBLISHED BY

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD CO.
President, CLINTON W. SWEET ‘Treasurer, F. W. Dopar
Cat wo W. Desmond _ Secretary, F. T, MILLER

11-15 EAST 24TH STREET, MANHATTAN

Telephone, 4430 Madison Square

Subscription (Yearly) $3.00 Published Monthly

gl eee ee
Eby AL?RECORD:
LEN EW, YORK~ 0 ~:

OFFICE OF PUBLICATION: No. 1! EAST 24th STREET, NEW YORK CITY
WESTERN OFFICE: 84! MONADNOCK BLDC., CHICACO, ILL.

Che

Architectural Rerord

Vol. XXIII

JUNE, 1908.

No. 6.

Our Suburban Architecture

There is no denying the fact that the
standard of American architecture is
raised from year to year, and there is
no department of that architecture
which shows this constant improvement
to a greater extent than does the de-
sign of our suburban houses. ‘This de-
sign, to a large extent, has not devel-
oped from its early beginnings which our
ancestors borrowed or brought across
the sea with them from England, France
and elsewhere. On the contrary, it has
preferred to strike out for itself on new
lines, seeking inspiration under new con-
ditions of life and environment, begin-
ning with extreme crudeness of concep-
tion in form and in plan and gradually
developing these rude beginnings in har-
mony with the rapid growth of our com-
mercial wealth. As commerce increased
in volume it brought in its wake, as was
the case in Roman military conquest, a
pomp and a luxury that was practically
unknown elsewhere. Merchants pros-
pered, grew rich and sought an interest-
ing and diverting way in which to ex-
press their prosperity and enjoy their
gain. Their newly found wealth led
them into luxurious ways, increasing the

‘number of their material wants and tend-

ing in general to make their daily life
more complex. Such conditions the ar-
chitect and the artist were called upon
to meet and such tendencies they must
express in the houses which they were
called upon to design for these com-
merce loving people who demanded
something grand, something new, some-
thing which others would not be likely

to excel in extent or equal in magnifi-
cence; expense, not to say economy,
was not their object, so long as they
were enabled to make the splendid im-
pression which they considered an in-
dispensable part of their position in life.
So rapid has been the commercial de-
velopment of the United States in the
last decade that the progress of its arch-
itecture has been unable to keep pace
with conditions, and especially notice-
able is this backwardness in our urban
architecture, which was not so fortu-
nate in its emancipation from customs
and forms which were no more to find
favor, as was our suburban architecture
which stands to-day as a consequence, as
perhaps the only substantial accomplish-
ment for which we can claim any meas-
ure of credit. But even suburban archi-
tecture has failed to progress fast
enough to keep apace of the require-
ments and faithfully reflect present na-
tional tendencies. This statement is
made, however, with all due allowance
for what has been accomplished in this
field in some instances in widely scat-
tered localities. We speak of the aver-
age standard of performance.
Improvement in suburban architecture
has come about to some extent, despite
what we might call its indigenous de-
velopment, through the training which
Americans have obtained in Europe.
This training has not meant merely the
importation into our architecture of for-
eign forms and tradition, it has acted, in
some instances, in quite the opposite
way of establishing in its possessors a

420

new standard and in giving them new
inspiration and artistic hope. While our
domestic architecture has thus obtained
some real inspiration from contact with
tradition, our public and commercial art
has been affected very differently and to
a large extent detrimentally, and it is
coming to depend for its salvation more
and more upon the very commercial
conditions which called it into being.
Commerce introduced and made steel
available for building purposes; the steel
skeleton at once came into use; ma-
chinery has developed and been greatly
cheapened; the result has been a renas-
cence of concrete and tile. Commerce
has made vast inroads into our timber
supply, which, imperfectly protected, is
rapidly bringing the American people
face. to, face with a wood famine which,
as far as we can at present judge, con-
crete and tile will help to alleviate more
than any other materials. Thus com-
merce destroys a building material and
circumstances enable it to provide a ready
substitute; it destroys while it con-
serves, but the far seeine men of the

nation fully realize that the present pro-
cess cannot go on indefinitely, for there
must come a time when the waste will
come to seriously overbalance what can

be conserved. Such wise individual's
are beginning to recognize the fact that
our economic salvation lies in a policy of
protection and conservation, not so much
in a production of always something new
and much better than what we at present
possess, but in a judicious guarding and
application to our needs of what we
have, a sort of higher development of
the present immature stage rather than
a seeking after new and virgin fields of
endeavor.

This economic condition is, to a cer-
tain extent, reflected in our architecture,
and, perhaps it is not an exaggeration
to say, in all architecture, which, in this
sense faithfully reflects social and eco-
nomic tendencies the world over. Just
as society feels that it has seen every-
thing, heard everything, done every-
thing, so our architects are apt to
feel that everything in the field of
architecture and art has been said,
seen and done, and that in order

THE ARCHITECTURAL: RECORD,

to accomplish progress it is necessary
for them to break away completely from
all tradition and the basic principles of
humanism in their art. They feel a need
to strike out on new lines and force their
work to grow along the lines of mathe-
matical reasoning rather than in accord-
ance with the gentler, though perhaps
less exact, course of natural selection.
Much of our architecture bears this
stamp of artistic reasoning in which the
French have led the artistic world for
many generations. Our foreign-trained
architects have brought this influence to
the United States with them, and the in-
fluence which is spreading through their
works is at present recognized as the
most potent force in our artistic devel-
opment, and one which is both beneficial
and detrimental in its effect upon our
architecture. Now, in a sense, the
adoption of much of this architecture
raisonnée expresses the wastefulness
of American conditions of life, the
love of cheap, tawdry display and nov-
elty at any cost. We do not mean to
assert that French art is responsible for
its American version; we refer herein
only to the effect of its influence, not to
the art‘itseli,

The condition of our suburban archi-
tecture before the advent of the English
and French influence was, of course,
such that in its abject, artistic poverty
any extraneous influence was welcomed,
and it is not to be gainsaid, furnished
a certain amount of new inspiration upon
which it was free to grow according to
its own needs and inclinations. True,
we had the Colonial. But what have
we done to continue its development?
When we speak of American suburban
architecture we do not, of course, mean
to assert that Europe has not contributed
its share of wholesome influence to its
foundation. What we do mean to say
is that the American method of proce-
dure, the point of view from which its
problems are attacked, is still largely
foreign. Its forms may be some of them
of French importation, but they are just
as likely to show their origin to England
or Germany, to Belgium or Holland.
These forms, regardless of their origin,
are. arranged, expanded or compressed

OUR SUBURBAN

into combinations to satisfy certain pro-
cesses of reasoning. In short, they are
regimented and reasoned into an archi-
tectural mass. When one speaks of su-
burban architecture being regimentea
one refers chiefly to methods of plan-
ning, the importance of establishing
axes in plan and the general symmetri-
cal idea which is peculiar to French for-
mal design. The application of formal
design to country architecture is, of
course, limited by the more impermanent
character of the buildings; but, at the
same time, their greater latitude of ex-
tent invites formality.

But while the attitude of our archi-
tects towards their design problems may
still be, to a large extent, an unreason-
able one for American conditions, yet
there is noticeable in widely scattered
sections of the country an earnest at-
tempt to alter this attitude to a more
frank acknowledgment not so much of
our artistic independence of the old
world, and its artistic tradition, but of
the necessity of looking native conditions
squarely in the face and in adopting
from foreign performances what is ap-
propriate to and consistent with these
conditions, and most important, perhaps,
of adopting that which gives promise
of offering American architecture sug-
gestions for future development and
growth. The frankness in design to
which we make reference above has been
confined thus far almost entirely to our
suburban architecture which has conse-
quently acquired something of artistic
merit.

In the March issue of the Archi-
tectural Record there were shown a
large number of suburban houses ex-
hibiting, in some degree, the kind of
artistic striving to which we allude.
Many of these designs, no doubt, con-
tain much for which the architectural
fraternity, as a whole, would hesitate to
stand sponsor, but the general basis of
the work cannot fail to commend itself
to architects and the result to the pros-
pective builders of homes. It may not
be possible to acclaim, as invariably
beautiful, the products of such labor,
but the measure of success which has
already crowned its efforts offers en-

ARCHITECTURE. 421

couragement for the future of American
architecture.

Whether this success has _ been
achieved, as some of its authors insist,
by getting at what they call the funda-
mental principles of all design and art;
by eschewing absolutely the forms in
which architecture has found its expres-
sion in other lands at other times, and
by composing new designs out of the nat-
ural forms which are indigenous with
the site and conditions, whether this has
been their method of procedure does not
particularly interest the public nor does
it especially concern their contemporary
professional brethren. After all, who
can analyze the course of reasoning, if,
indeed, one may call it reasoning, by,
which a beautiful design, a work of art,
has been achieved. The explanation of
a work of design can be but speculative,
and such an explanation is valuable in
proportion as it is suggestive and in-
structive. Leaving out of consideration
then the mental process which has pro-
duced what is admirable in the work to
which is referred above, it is the result
alone which interests the spectator.

Nor can one agree today with those
who persistently maintain, in matters of
art, that beauty and truth are synony-
mous, for those who are guided by this
principle soon reach the position where
these two qualities refuse to co-oper-
ate and compromise is inevitable. Even
if they fail to realize the nature of the
difficulty and its cause, they instinctively
make mutual concessions between con-
flicting forces. The development of art
and especially of architecture has ever
been a history of compromise between
what, on the one hand seemed the most
obvious and straightforward thing to do,
and on the other of certain practical
limitations and forceful economies which
could not be disregarded with impunity.
No, beauty in art is not truth nor vice
versa; in fact, the case might be more
emphatically stated by saying that in art
the end attained justifies the means, if
truth figures prominently as a determin-
ing factor so much the better, but its
absence should not, in the mind of the
beholder, effect his verdict as to the
quality of the result.

“LO@LIHOUV ‘SHNOC "M NVAITIOS WO ASNOH ‘T ‘DI ‘AON ‘Haeq Ime us1g

The Modest Country Home

Perhaps there is no sort of habitation
about which there exists a greater curi-
osity in the minds of the great American
middle class than one finds to-day in re-
gard to the suburban or the country
house which can be obtained at a
moderate expenditure. It is one of
the... most ° popular . topics of - the
pictorial magazines. Even the daily
newspapers have touched upon _ the
subject to some extent. While such
a ready response to the popular demand
for information about home-building is
gratifying, one cannot but reach the con-
clusion that the greater portion of the
effort to meet that demand fails utterly
of serving a useful purpose. One can-
not deny that the subject, as presented
in these popular journals, is interesting
and affords considerable entertainment,
having won many ardent adherents; but
neither can one escape the conviction
that, before the intelligent building
public will be in position to acquire
substantial ideas of the conditions which
confront the individual who contem-
plates building his family a suburban
or country home, he will be compelled
to unlearn much that he has gathered
from stich sources; that it will, in- fact,
becomenecessary. for -him:. to place
himself in the humiliating position
of one who, while he has a definite
and. important’ - part to- play in. “the
transaction of building, must never-
theless be content to place himself at
the merey..of expert: advice on many
matters which popular fiction has led
him to believe are within his province.

Lack of honesty, to which such discus-
sions generally fail even to allude, is one
of the most obvious drawbacks to a
higher standard of planning and design-
ing in our modest country houses. The
owner would have -his house planned
and designed as though he were build-
ing chiefly to afford his friends an in-
teresting and diverting place in which
to hold social intercourse. His real pur-
pose, namely, to provide a comfortable
home for his family is forced into the
background, and in place of the few

roomy chambers which his domestic es-
tablishment requires, he permits his
house to be divided up into a greater
number of smaller rooms, none of which
is adequate to serve, with any measure
of success, the purposes for which it
might, under other conditions, be in-
tended. Acordingly, one encounters par-
lors and libraries, sitting rooms and dens
all squeezed into the meagre compass of
a space of twenty-five by thirty-five feet-
or less, a mere piece of affectation. The
prospective owner of such a house could
do nothing better than to take to heart
those lines of Shakespeare in Polonius’
advice to his son:

“But this above all,—to thine own self
be true”

It, is. a lack. of honesty to himself
and to his family that is responsible for
the often ridiculous miniature mansions
which are depicted in so many of
our small suburban houses. He must
not only be honest with himself and his
friends, but with his experts, whom, of
course, it is useless to try to deceive. In
stating his conditions he must be willing”
to acknowledge and state his real. re-
quirements without being unduly influ-
enced by considerations which, in real-
ity, have no bearing on his case. It can
profit such an individual little to attempt
to model his needs after pictures of Cali-
fornian bungalows or New England
farm houses. Such a course is as foreign
to his training as the result is to his
needs, and the result surely is not diffi-
cult to detect in the abortive attempts at
composite designs which are so _per-
sistently familiar to suburbanites.

A force which is responsible for much
of this influence thus far, so detrimental
to the standard of our suburban design,
is the popular but dangerous tendency
which assumes that there exists a
short cut to all popularly imparted at
a very small Outlay im time sand in
money. . The. déctrine. = whieh: : one
hears preached so much in commerce:
“Do it yourself with our directions, and

424

save time and expense” has very seri-
ously invaded the territory of American
architecture and has led the public to
assume an attitude in relation to matters
of architecture with which it has no
right to concern itself.

The building public has, as a conse-
quence, lost the advantages of its posi-
tion by virtue of failing to perform its
proper functions.

Instead of studying its part and acting
it conscientiously and legitimately, it

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD.

regarded by the prospective
owner as obstacles to be overcome,
rather than as the legitimate agen-
cies through which alone he is enabled
to get the maximum result for his
money. And the smaller the house
and the less expensive the more bane-
ful seems to be the effect of the own-
er’s attempt to do most of his own de-
signing and to exercise personal super-
vision over its construction. A single

quence,

experience, however, is generally suffi-

FIG. 2. STUDIO OF MR. H. D. MURPHY.

Winchester, Mass.

prefers, instead, and is encouraged in its
course, to usurp the powers of technical
and mechanical activities which, in its
hands, become the dangerous tools that
produce the comedies and tragedies of
our suburban architecture. According
to the recommendations of much of this
doctrine architects and builders are, to
a client, merely expensive and dispensa-
ble commodities, who are, in conse-

Robert C. Coit, Architect.

cient to convince him of his error. He
then realizes that he is simply passing
through a preliminary and experimental
stage which the architect and the builder
are able to experience by proper train-
ing without the costly and disastrous
effects which are an amateur’s lot. Asa
result, such an experiment generally
leaves him in a confirmed condition of
disgust with everything that pertains to

THE MODEST COUNTRY HOME. 425

building. If he has the courage to seek
another domicile it is usually a ready-
made affair that he chooses, preferring
to risk the chance of getting something
ready-made which will admit of altering
to suit his purpose rather than face again
the unknown realm of ideas which his
first experience has convinced him he is
incapable of mastering. He is now
helplessly at sea and glad enough to
grasp at a straw to save himself. This

FIG, 3.

Salisbury, Conn.

little play of amateur house-building has
been acted so many thousands of times
that it is really surprising that his kind
continues to fail to see the light. But
the bulk of current work shows only
too plainly that his successors are still
laboring under the same delusion.

To show that it is not impossible to
do the thing properly on an inexpensive
scale, we illustrate the following houses,
which for variety of design and mate-

rial are fairly representative of what
might be the quality of performance for
the modest suburban or country home.
Figure 1 is the home of Mr. Sullivan W.
Jones, an architect, and is situated at
Bryn Mawr Park, New York. The de-
sign consists in a picturesque treatment
of gable roofs, in which the large rough
stone chimney serves to relieve a possi-
ble monotony. The house is absolutely
devoid of ornament of any sort, and the

COTTAGE ON ESTATE OF MRS. GHO. E. WOOD.

Mann & MeNeill, Architects.

materials employed are inexpensive, but
characteristically and effectively used.
It is to be observed how the architect has
softened the penetrating effect of his
windows and made them mere deco-
rative spots in the walls by minutely
subdividing the panes of glass. The
strip of roof which runs across the front
at the base of the main gable is effective
in tying the chimney to the main mass
of the house. Figure 2 is the studio of

426

Mr. Herman Dudley Murphy, at Win-
chester, Massachusetts, an artist, who
has also paid considerable attention to ar-
tistic picture frames. It is an extremely
inexpensive structure, though more for-
mai in treatment than Fig. 1. Here the

attention is directed chiefly to the walls,
which are covered with plaster on a
wire-lath foundation and interrupted at
the corners by wooden posts which run
emphatically

to the eaves and are

THE: ARCHITECTURAL “RECORD.

unexpected charm. An attractive fea-
ture is the design of the porch-supports
and roof, which gives the main gable
just sufficient flexibility of silhouette to
soften the inevitably hard roof lines.

It is seldom that a small suburban
house depends very much for its effect
upon color and detail, but the next ex-
ample illustrated, Figure 4, a cottage
on Oak Road at Tarrytown, New York,
is an exception to this rule. For the

FIG. 4. A COTTAGE ON OAK ROAD, TARRYTOWN, N. Y.

stained. The garden is cleverly tied to
the studio by means of the picturesque
lattice screen which shows on the left
of the picture. Figure 3 illustrates a
cottage on the estate of Mrs. George E.
(Wood, at Salisbury, in Connecticut. In
this cottage the architects, Messrs.
Mann & McNeill, have rendered the
familiar type of small New England
farmhouse, but with sufficient modifica-
tion and interest of detail to give it an

Ewing & Chappell, Architects.

first impression is of brilliant contrast
between the clean white of the walls
and the dark shingles. A second inspec-
tion reveals an unusual amount of
detail in the form of minute mouldings.
In Figure 5 we have a type of long, low
gambrel-roofed house, which, at the
hands of a less skillful designer than
Mr. Wilson Eyre, its architect, might
have resulted in an uninteresting and
commonplace composition. The way in

THE MODEST COUNTRY HOME.

which the overhang of the roof has been
supported aesthetically on wooden brack-
ets introduces a feeling of grace, where
the disagreeable effect of too much roof
for the size of the house would other-
wise have been remarked. The placing
and arrangement of roof employed in
the large dormer is especially worthy
of mote: it is. also to be observed
that the architect felt the necessity of
even more securely fixing this dormer,

427

are given chiefly to show what different
impressions may be produced by a
change in the point of view. The limi-
tations of photography are here appar-
ent, proving that the only way to really
know a house is to go and see it. The
attractive natural setting of Mr. Kirby's
house, and the way in which the most
has been made of its advantages, deserve
mention.

The next two illustrations, Figures 8

es ———
=

FIG.
Chestnut Hill, Pa.

which he has accomplished by breaking
out the gabled hood over the entrance
and butting its ridge against the wall of
the dormer under the windows. The
floored stone terrace, which presumably
is used as a veranda, deserves notice for
its appropriate and sufficient handling.
Figures 6 and 7, like Figure 1, illustrate
the home of an architect, Mr. Henry V.
Kirby, situated at South Orange, in
New Jersey. Two views of this house

5. HOUSE OF MR. EH. A. CRENSHAW.

Wilson Eyre, Architect.

and 9, illustrate a very different prob-
lem in suburban house-designing. In
this case the architects, Messrs. Hill &
James, were required to design a house
on a restricted treeless plot situated on
a slope. Figure 8 shows how advantage
has been taken of the falling grade to
accommodate a basement and an ex-
tension, making the house, in that part,
four stories in height. To compensate
for the lack of a natural background,

AKCHITECTURAL RECORD.

HOUSE OF HENRY VY. KIRBY, ARCHITECT.

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frig,

: Plsiies

FIG. 7. HOUSE OF HENRY V. KIRBY, ARCHITECT.
South Orange, N. J.

Quincy, Mass.

THE MODEST COUNTRY ~HOME:

FIG. 8. THE ANGIER HOUSE.

FIG. 9. THE ANGIER HOUSE.

Hill

429

& James, Architects.

THE ARCHITECTURAL RECORD,

FIG. 10. SEASIDE COTTAGE OF MR. E. M. BLUNT.
Marshfield, Mass. Thomas Atkinson, Architect.

FIG. 11. SEASIDE COTTAGE OF MR. E. M. BLUNT.
Marshfield, Mass. Thomas Atkinson, Architect.

THE MODEST COUNTRY HOME. 431

the architects have found it necessary
to provide the greatest amount of va-
riety in the silhouette of the roofs and
to attract attention at the same time to
the plain cement wall surfaces, whose
only visible adornments are the massive
projecting second-story window sills, all
the other sills being architecturally neg-
ligible. This problem of the barren re-
stricted site, which is apt to occur with
increasing frequency, presents the max-

the least expensive of all, while it is also
the least permanent, being without a
cellar and of the lightest stud-frame
construction, without interior wall fin-
ish. It is a seaside cottage, situated at
Marshfield, in Massachusetts, not in-
tended for occupancy all the year round.
The grounds, being in an unfinished
state, cannot be fairly considered in re-
lation to the house. In fact, the house
itself is not a home in the sense of a

A BROOKLINE HOUSE FINISHED IN PLASTER.
W. G. Rantoul, Architect.

Brookline, Mass.

imum of difficulty to the designer. The
house must be equally well designed
from all points of the compass on ac-
count of its exposed position, while it
can tely on little or no help {from “its
surroundings.

Our last example, shown in Figures
10 anid) 11, is different again from any
of the other houses in this series. In
the first’ place, it is, perhaps; by far

permanent domicile, but it has been in-
troduced here because it contains sug-
gestions of what may be done by a com-
petent designer, who has but a little
money with which to obtain a pleasing
effect, a task which, it need not be
pointed out, presents peculiar difficul-
ties and requires frankness in the use of
materials, and which is so rarely appre-
ciated.

Brockie & Hastings, Architects.

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complete the place as far as the picture is concerned.

‘The charm of the right kind of house among trees.

Villa Nova, Pa.

Treating the Grounds About the House

Mr. Howson Lott of Lonelyville, N. J.,
or Rye Neck, N. Y., rises at six thirty or
seven of a wintry morning, catches the
seven forty-one or the eight eleven on
the Delay, Linger and Wait, or the New
York, Long Island and Hudson River
Railroad, spends thirty to sixty minutes
or more on the train, wiling away the
time, it may be, as he peruses a satirical
description of himself and his ways writ-
ten at so much per line by a dyspeptic
newspaper man in aten by twelve flat
overlooking an inner court. Before his
journey is ended he must cross the river
in an atrociously stuffy ferryboat or
take a car down town. His day’s work
done, he reverses the process, having
spent probably from two to three hours
or more of the day in traveling. Why
does he do it? Because it is worth while.
He is willing, despite the ridicule of our
friend of the comic paper, to give up
a good, deal in time and trouble to get
fresh air to breathe, the sight of real
grass and trees in summer or real white
snow in winter; to hear the singing of
an occasional bird or see the whisking
of a stray squirrel that has escaped the
gun of the predaceous Italian, the small
boy or the alleged sportsman; to raise
some flowers or vegetables or eggs him-
self; and to feel a sense of liberty, to
have a home big enough to live in with
a space around it, in which the air may
freely circulate; and, above all, to have
an abode and a piece of the earth’s sur-
face that he may call his own.

By this time Mr. Lott, contemplating
building himself a home, as a rule, has
got beyond the stage of simple faith in
the local carpenter or the books of Mr.
Shoppell as aids to designing a house.
He realizes that there is something more
to it than making the rooms of the requi-
site size, making the structure sound
and stable, installing the latest electrical
and plumbing devices. A little dimly,

perhaps, but still effectively he feels that
his house ought to be somehow an ex-
pression of himself, and that if he is to

be content in it, to be unwilling to leave
it in the morning and glad to get back
to it in the evening, it must be imagined
and perfected not merely by an artisan,
but by an artist.

So our enlightened commuter has
found out that whether he is going to lay
out $5,000 or $50,000 on a house it is
the safe and economical thing to pay
someone who knows five per cent. or ten
per cent. to show him how to do it. But
the house is not the only thing for which
he braves the daily ordeal of trains, fer-
ryboats and cars. There is the ground on
which it stands which he bought by the
front foot or by the acre, but which in
any case ought to be not merely a place
to put the structure, but, in a sense, part
of it. Since he has paid so much for the
ground, he ought, as a mere matter of
getting a return on his investment, to
get the most possible out of it. It surely
seems absurd to pay a fancy price for a
luxury like a little bit of land and then to
bestow so little care or thought on it
that it yields a mere fraction of the re-
turn in use and beauty it ought to bring.
It is like buying a $2,500 piano so that
the children may practice their five-fin-
ger exercises.

Mr. Lott is an expansive and hospit-
able man, and will be happy to take us
out to see his little place. So we run
the gauntlet of the cars, the ferries and
the trains and accept his invitation to
dinner. He will take you round and
show you his trees and bushes, discuss
the mosquito problem, and as you sit on
the veranda in the dusk considering one
of his good cigars, he will, if you en-
courage him, tell you the history of his
experiences with the real estate man, the
grader, the builder and all the rest of
them. He is a little hazy about the
functions of his architect, but gives him
lots of credit for the arrangement in the
butler’s pantry or the closets in the spare
bedroom, but is inclined to think
he should have kept a sharper lookout
on the plasterers and tells you how much

434

better a job was done when some of it
had to be taken out and he looked after
the repairs himself. His notions about
the merits or demerits of the design are
somewhat vague, for Mr. Lott, excellent
fellow though he is, needs educating on
this subject. Whether this education is
to come through the public schools or
from some other source is hard to tell

[vs
! iS

THE ARCHITECTORAL “RECORD.

put down a cement walk, straight or
curly as the case might be, smoothed
off the surface, sowed some grass seed
and let it go at that. Probably he left
various and sundry old boards, bricks
or plaster six inches under the surface
so that the owner wonders in summer
time why those brown patches in the
lawn seem to have come to stay in spite

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VEGETABLE GAROEN

at present, but we shall have little senti-
ment in our architecture until those who
pay for it get it in themselves.

If our commuter is hazy about his
house, he is still more so about his lot.
He put his house thus and so because—
because there seemed to be no reason
for putting it anywhere else; the house
built, he got in the local grader who

(Seer?
1
Cee Ss

of the sprinkler’s going all day. Then
Mr. Lott got in some trees and bushes
from the nurseryman, set them out here
and there and sat back and contemplated
the result with satisfaction. All up and
down the street his neighbors have been
doing about the same thing; a smooth
lawn, mostly badly shaped, if it is any-
thing but flat, some trees and miscellaun-

TREATING THE GROUN

eous bushes, probably including a Japan-
ese maple, a golden elder, a purple bar-
berry, a chamaecyparis plumosa aurea,
and a Koster’s blue spruce.

Looking up and down the street the
scene is cheerful and American with low
fences, or none at all, waving trees and
grass shorn within an inch of its life
as. far.asi-one. carti-see.- But it is .all
rather futile and aimless. The house
and the grounds as a rule do not really
fit. The best part of the latter is dedi-
cated to the public. There is seldom any
evidence of a definite scheme, a serious

DS ABOUT THE HOUSE: 435

plain that the first and most important
question of all is the placing of the
house, for on that all the rest must de-
pend, the paths and roads, the turn-
abouts, the getting-in of coal, the shape
and size of the lawns and so on. It is
safe to lay down the broad principle that
the house should not be put in the mid-
dle.of -the lot;: This, on the. average
narrow and deep lot, will usually make
two largish pieces (front and rear) ap-
proximately square, and two narrow
ones at the sides on the length of the
house. Take a lot about 50x120 feet,

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